


a spell over the west

by magicsoul (cherishiskisa)



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, And They Were Roommates. Oh My God They Were Roommates, Bickering, Dirty Talk, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, M/M, Music, Mutual Masturbation, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, angry cuddling, bumped up the rating for chapter 2!, im like I Dont Do Ensemble Fic and then write a fic with YOONGI IN IT, kihyuns not bad... hes just drawn that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:45:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherishiskisa/pseuds/magicsoul
Summary: They have a gig two weekends from now, their lineup is finalized, and this is arealgig at a live music club this time, not yet another bar mitzvah. If Kihyun doesn’t kill Changkyun before then for leaving his laundry outagain,fifth time this month, they might even do well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey all!!! so this is NOT the big changki i’ve been working on but it sure is a small changki! it’s kind of introspective and very short, but i hope you like it anyway!!!! 
> 
> title from bang the doldrums by fall out boy -- the thematic playlist for this fic, very rough and 90% fob, can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dnJSvAR8RlN8DPP0yCVZh?si=C7hAV9EBTKC7L8y31JPRSQ)

“I had a dream we got married,” Changkyun says.

“That’s boring,” Kihyun says.

Changkyun is quiet for a moment, poking the contents of the frying pan with a spatula. “You also tried to kill me multiple times.”

Now that makes Kihyun look up from his newspaper. “Oh, yeah? Not a bad idea.”

“Want eggs?”

“No, I was about to head out,” Kihyun says. He closes his newspaper, takes a gulp of Changkyun’s lukewarm coffee, and stands. He’s working all day, but they have practice later, and yes, he knows he’ll be exhausted and in the blackest of moods, but Changkyun alleges to have some new lyrics for them to futz around with, and everyone always seems to like the added rasp that working in customer service from 8:30 to 5 gives Kihyun’s voice. One silver lining, at least. But he and the rest of the band don’t tend to deal in silver linings. Especially Changkyun, who is now burning his eggs and frowning at the pan instead of shutting off the heat. 

“I think these are burning,” Changkyun says, genuinely surprised, as the pan begins to smoke and spit.

Kihyun sighs, turns the stove off for him, and goes to work. 

They have a gig two weekends from now, and Yoongi’s been on edge but Kihyun’s not that worried. Practices are often enough that they’re in good shape, and Jooheon, their new drummer, has been more than holding his own. (Kihyun hates admitting that Changkyun was right about something, but he did good by bringing Jooheon in when Kihyun realized they needed an actual rhythm section, not just pre-bought loops on a computer, but technically the thanks goes to Jooheon himself, not Changkyun at all, and balance is maintained in the universe.) With him on drums, Chanyeol on guitar, Yoongi on keys, Kihyun on vocals, and Changkyun on bass, it’s a winning combo, and this is a _real_ gig, at a live music club, not yet another bar mitzvah. If Kihyun doesn’t kill Changkyun before then for leaving his laundry out _again,_ fifth time this month, they might even do well.

Work sucks, just like Blink-182 predicted. But afterwards, Kihyun takes the train to Yoongi’s place, where they all have their kits set up in the garage already. Kihyun, the luckiest of them all, has nothing to bring with him, ever, because his _voice_ is his instrument, but Changkyun has to lug his bass and his amp (Yoongi, bless his incredible heart, forbids Changkyun from keeping his amp at his place) all the way across town on the bus. Chanyeol brings his guitar, Jooheon brings his own sticks, and that’s about it. By the time Kihyun is pulling up the garage door and joining them, Jooheon has one headphone in playing an old track to warm up to, tapping out a rhythm on the snare, Chanyeol is tuning, Yoongi is changing a lightbulb in the back corner, and Changkyun is nowhere to be seen.

“It’s so quiet, that’s so nice,” Kihyun comments, setting his bag down.

“He just stepped in to get some iced tea for everyone,” Yoongi says. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Damn,” Kihyun sighs, but he brought his own drink in a thermos he filled up at work, hot water with honey and lemon to soothe his throat, and he perches on Yoongi’s piano bench until Yoongi, done changing the lightbulb, kicks him off so he can warm up, too.

The door leading back into Yoongi’s place creaks, and Changkyun pushes it open with his hip, his arms full of mugs. “Oh, hey,” he says, but Kihyun doesn’t respond, because he’s checking his email to see if their manager has contacted them with any more info about the gig. Jackson is great, he’s sleeping with someone at a record label, but he’s really shitty at responding to emails, which makes it difficult to take advantage of his connections. Maybe someday. 

“Thanks, man,” Chanyeol says, swinging his guitar around to hang on his back and taking one of the mugs when Changkyun holds it out to him. “Is there sugar in this?”

“Three,” Changkyun says. “Right?”

“Right,” Chanyeol says with a big, toothy grin. “Thanks!” He claps Changkyun on the shoulder, but not hard enough to make him spill, and Changkyun gives him a small smile in return, scuttling through to distribute the rest of the mugs.

“You don’t have to thank him _twice,_ it’s not even like he brewed it himself,” Kihyun says.

“It’s powdered, actually,” Yoongi says, accepting a mug from Changkyun, and Kihyun wrinkles his nose.

“It’s hardly tea if it’s powdered,” he says.

“You don’t have to have any,” Changkyun says placidly. “In fact, I didn’t even make you one.”

Kihyun sets his phone down and raises an eyebrow. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“I knew you’d have your honey water already, don’t get—”

“What?” Kihyun taunts. “Don’t get what?”

Changkyun’s mouth goes tight. “I’m not doing this,” he says. “Here, Jooheon.”

“Thanks,” Jooheon says and takes the final mug. “You’re missing out, Kihyun, it’s honestly decent despite the xylitol aftertaste.”

“New band name idea?” Yoongi says, then starts playing _Für Elise._

Kihyun fights back a smile, then stands, heading for the mic stand. “You’re still not sold on Hypothetical?”

“I thought it was Theoretical,” Chanyeol says. 

“We really need to pick an actual name,” Jooheon says. “My mom is starting to get worried.”

“We’ll be fine,” Kihyun dismisses, then finally turns to Changkyun. He’s wearing his bass and a serious facial expression. “So. You. What do you have for us?”

“Eh, let’s work our way up to it,” Changkyun says. “Play track one.”

Jooheon pops out his headphone, snaps gum that Kihyun hadn’t even noticed he was chewing, and with a resounding crash of the cymbals, cues everyone in to start the first song of their setlist. This one is good, a real people-pleaser, and Changkyun wrote most of the lyrics like he always does except for the bridge, which was all Yoongi, and he headbangs his blue-this-week hair along, hands flying over the electric piano while Kihyun sings himself hoarser than he was already. 

“Track two!” Changkyun shouts when Chanyeol hits the final chord, and technically Kihyun is in charge here, but he’s running on adrenaline now so he lets Changkyun call the shots and they go into track two, this one more of an angry-crooning kind of song, Kihyun pressed up close against the mic and Changkyun’s eyes heavy somewhere near the nape of Kihyun’s neck. Kihyun can’t see him, but he knows that’s where he’s looking. 

This song is good, too — Kihyun and Yoongi wrote the melody together, and Chanyeol sings backup, honey-warm doo-wop to Kihyun’s soaring high notes, and Kihyun lets Chanyeol take the second chorus alone so he can sip on his thermos water and refresh his vocal cords. But it’s strange to hear Changkyun’s lyrics in a voice other than Kihyun’s own, so Kihyun jumps back in before long, fingers curling around the base of the mic and his eyes slipping closed so he can focus on the words he’s singing. 

“Put more rasp into it,” Yoongi suggests when they’re done with that one. “It sounds too sweet otherwise.”

“I didn’t write it to be sweet,” Changkyun mumbles.

“Nobody was talking to you,” Kihyun says, and Changkyun lifts his hands, no contest, and goes over to practice a tricky bass lick with Chanyeol. 

“Sounding good otherwise, though,” Yoongi says. He sips his iced tea. “But Jooheon’s right, we need a name. It’s been a year, Kihyun.”

“And?” Kihyun says, irritated. It’s been much longer, actually, but who’s counting? “The music’s good, that’s the point. Who needs a name?”

“Changkyun came up with a good one,” Chanyeol pipes up, and Kihyun glances at him (but not at Changkyun) with interest. “Tyger, with a Y.”

“William Blake?” Kihyun clarifies, and by Chanyeol’s side, Changkyun stands straighter. “Hmm.”

“I like it,” Jooheon says, hitting a crash-ride combo on the drums. “Tygerrrrrr.”

Of course he does. Nobody in this band has any taste except Kihyun. But he can’t deny it’s a catchy name, and it about sums up their aesthetic, and it’s certainly unique, but he can’t just _say_ that. “I’ll think about it,” Kihyun finally says. 

“Bitch,” Yoongi snorts. “Let’s do track three.”

Kihyun has to play the tambourine on track three, but he doesn’t really like to. It makes him feel cheap. He goes over to pick it up from its resting place next to Yoongi’s toolbox and vintage Playboy magazine collection, and looks askance at Changkyun. “Why didn’t you tell me you had an idea for a name?” he asks, not particularly interested but he may as well ask, since he’s over here.

“You never listen to me,” Changkyun shrugs. “Figured I’d save my breath.”

Which is a fair point, so Kihyun doesn’t argue it, just goes back over to the mic. “Track three,” he says, and Chanyeol’s guitar wails to life, and Kihyun loses himself in the noise, the tambourine hard and jangly against his hip, altogether too light-hearted and silly for how dark Changkyun’s lyrics are, how dark they always are, but it sounds good, and that’s what matters.

“Okay, here’s the new shit,” Changkyun says after track three, out of breath, his hands visibly tired as he reaches into the beat-up backpack he carts around with him, stuffed full of notebooks. “There’s two.”

“What genre you thinking?” Yoongi asks, taking one of the notebooks and flipping it open to the page Changkyun has marked with a makeshift bookmark — a laminated leaf, because of course it is. 

Changkyun shrugs and hops up to sit on a bench, pulling his legs up under himself. “Whatever you guys think would be best.”

Kihyun tilts his head in to read the lyrics. Changkyun’s handwriting is appalling. Kihyun puts one finger on the page and traces the scratches of ink — sometimes that makes it easier to understand. Chanyeol and Jooheon are looking at the other notebook, but the one Yoongi is holding open starts with a list: 

_outdoors, in, at work, at home/ with friends, with me, without, alone — [instrumental ??? ] waking up, here and there, running errands like the old days/ out the window, out the door, he won the battle but he lost the war — CHORUS? - > i think about you, if you think about me, if you think about me, thinking about you, thinking about me, thinking about you - x 4_

“It’s a little… teeny-bopper,” Yoongi says, quietly enough that only Kihyun can hear.

Kihyun shrugs, his eyes on the words. “I can work with it.”

“Trade ya,” Jooheon says and tosses the other notebook to Kihyun, and Yoongi passes theirs to Chanyeol. Changkyun is being very, very quiet, his sleeves pulled over his hands, and if Kihyun were to look at him, he knows he’d see that his face has gone pale, expression closed-off and defensive, shoulders jumpy, restless all over until someone gives him the okay, but Kihyun doesn’t look, he reads his lyrics instead.

These ones are more abstract. More like Changkyun’s usual. And they don’t even rhyme. _want you to sing my heart out, you and me against the world. my best girl, siren call. lash me to the mast and sing me home. you miracle, you miracle. weave me. lambent girl, dangerous thing. leave me. consume me, let me rot here on your shore, swallowed by your banks,_ and the rest is completely illegible, much of it scribbled out entirely. 

“Hm,” Yoongi says.

“He hasn’t been sleeping a lot,” Kihyun explains, sotto voce. He wakes up for work most days to find that Changkyun stayed up through the night, sitting in the bay window — the one small luxury of their apartment — and drinking kefir and looking at the world through eyes half-open. 

“I like it, though,” Yoongi says, and Kihyun hums very quietly in agreement. On the other side of the garage, Chanyeol is already coming up with a riff to go with the _thinking about you_ song, but Kihyun wanted to write that one himself, he could hear the melody in his head as he read the lyrics. Changkyun likes a little retro, a little Sinatra in his My Chemical Romance, and Kihyun can typically balance it pretty well, not for Changkyun’s benefit, but because he likes that kind of sound, too. He can certainly balance it better than Chanyeol, who tends to skew ‘80s hair-rock.

“They’re okay?” Changkyun asks, his voice small, and Jooheon comes over to rub his back.

“Start in A-flat,” Kihyun says to Chanyeol, sharper than he intended to, and Chanyeol’s jaw tightens but he slides his capo down accordingly, then starts the riff over again. 

“They’re cool,” Yoongi says. “You scare me sometimes, buddy.”

“You and me both,” Changkyun says with a melodramatic shiver, but Kihyun can tell he’s happy, the tips of his ears going pink when he hops back down off the bench to go pick up his bass. 

The rest of practice is spent hammering out the chords and melodic lines of the thinking song, and since they don’t like coming up with formal titles, they declare this one a tentative track eight. Sometimes, these things just come together, and although they have songs they’ve been working on for months that haven’t made the track list yet, this one, two hours old, is an instant inclusion. Changkyun is glowing-pleased and bashful, playing his intense throbbing bassline to Chanyeol’s higher distorted twang, Kihyun singing over it all, _thinking about you thinking about me thinking about you._

They can’t stay up too late, despite it being ridiculous for five twenty-somethings to have a curfew. It’s just that Yoongi’s neighbors get grouchy, and Kihyun has work in the morning, so he and Changkyun need to catch the bus before midnight. The others, sans Changkyun, have work, too, but they don’t start as early as Kihyun does, hence the lack of urgency for them. Kihyun wishes they could have gone through track four again — that’s his favorite one, Changkyun in peak lyrical form, so bitter and morose and sarcastic, Kihyun’s very favorite, with exuberant vocals from nearly everyone shouting along, and they all get campy with it, melodramatic, spitting out Changkyun’s words like they’re fun and games instead of a weak cry for attention — but he’d rather get seven hours of sleep, so he declares himself done for the night and starts packing up his bag.

“Same time on Thursday?” Jooheon asks. “I might be late, but I’ll try not to be.”

“Do or do not,” Yoongi says. “There is no try.”

Kihyun nearly laughs, but Yoongi hates it when people laugh at his jokes, so he keeps it to himself, just checks one final time that his thermos is empty before putting it away. Changkyun and Chanyeol are having a conversation about David Bowie, and Changkyun is grinning, distracted from the process of packing up his bass and unplugging his amp. Chanyeol leans down to say something right in Changkyun’s ear, and that makes Changkyun really laugh, covering his mouth with his hand and kicking one of his feet out, the sole of his shoe scuffing the floor of Yoongi’s garage. Kihyun’s eyes narrow.

“Hey,” he says, verging on a snap. “If you make me late, I’m taking a cab and you’re walking home, I don’t care.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Changkyun sighs. He zips up his case, coils the cord of the amp around his arm a few times, and stands, bass on his back, amp strap in his hand. “Let’s go.”

“See you Thursday,” Chanyeol says, deliberately only to Changkyun and not Kihyun, but Kihyun doesn’t care if Chanyeol doesn’t like him; they’re not there to _like_ each other, and considering the founding members of this band are Changkyun and Kihyun, that much is very obvious. They’re there to make music. Kihyun doesn’t care if they like each other as long as good music is still being made. He likes Chanyeol just fine, though. He’s a good addition to the band, classically trained in guitar and decently talented as a songwriter, and he keeps Changkyun tame; it’s good for Changkyun to have a little friend of his own every once in a while. Kihyun has no issues with him. Jooheon is great, too, and Kihyun found Yoongi himself, and they all get along just fine. Except Changkyun and Kihyun, but that’s a given.

“G’night,” Changkyun says to everyone, and Kihyun smiles at Yoongi, who doesn’t smile back, just nods, and Jooheon is packing up his kit to keep it out of Yoongi’s way, so they leave mostly unobserved to walk to the bus stop. 

Kihyun has his bag slung over his shoulder, and Changkyun is walking with his backpack, his bass, and his amp. Kihyun doesn’t offer to help him, because Changkyun doesn’t seem like he needs help. They only live together for convenience’s sake; that’s all it’s ever been, ever since the band began. Sometimes, as they walk, the sides of their hands brush together, and Changkyun doesn’t flinch away as much anymore. 

***

Kihyun knows who Changkyun writes his lyrics about. He’s always known. The “girl” in his lyrics is a distraction — so is any mention of a “mistress,” a “housewife locking the door.” It’s unclear whom he thinks he’s fooling with this device. Kihyun has known since the first time Changkyun fidgeted and mumbled and said he has a song, maybe, if Kihyun wanted to sing it, and the emotional scribbles in Changkyun’s notebook contained a quote from Kihyun himself, something he’d said to him in a half-argument the week before. Maybe from before then, too. Right when Kihyun said he’s starting a band and he knows Changkyun plays bass, so he can be in it, since he has nothing better to do. Things were very different back then, they were both so dead-eyed and hungry and even less friendly than they are now, and at their very first show, just the two of them, Kihyun sang Changkyun’s song and a cover of “Lovefool,” also at Changkyun’s suggestion, Changkyun hesitant and shy on backup vocals. And Changkyun’s lyrics have only gotten worse and worse — he used to have a blog where he posted them, worked through the tangles before he showed them to Kihyun and, eventually, Yoongi and Chanyeol and now Jooheon, but he stopped using it once he figured out Kihyun knew the URL. The things he posted there were even more unambiguous and obsessive, all these references to sharp cheekbones and the distance between people who don’t know each other, not really. Kihyun used to think it was weird, kind of sad. Now he doesn’t really care. It took a while, but Changkyun is his friend. His friend who writes lyrics for him to sing, his friend who supports him, who pays half the rent, every month without fail. His friend who’s always been there even when Kihyun had nothing, and it’s a damn shame that Kihyun has to be friends with the likes of Changkyun, but it’s easier not to fight that at this point. He tries not to dwell on it, though. Changkyun always keeps his bedroom door open. Says he likes the breeze blowing through his window and into the hall. But Kihyun knows that’s not why. 

***

Before practice on Thursday, Changkyun texts the band groupchat — renamed by Jooheon to the tiger emoji since the last time — a link to a Dropbox with some more new lyrics, just in case anyone has any suggestions for places to put certain lines. Kihyun reads them at his desk between calls, and they’re good, genuinely so. Again, Changkyun-typical. One is all about how he’ll be a shadow if it means he can always be near, just don’t go too far into the light or he’ll disappear. Changkyun’s perpetual faith in Kihyun remains a mystery, as Kihyun is pretty sure he’s not at risk of becoming too famous for the rest of the band any time soon. But the lyrics are nice either way, and they get stuck in Kihyun’s head even though he doesn’t have a melody yet. Then he hums the one from yesterday quietly to himself, low enough that his coworkers won’t hear. _thinking about you thinking about me thinking about you._

Kihyun leaves work early; his boss went out after lunch, so everybody was only staying on the honor system, and Kihyun is a man of questionable morals even on a good day. He picks up an early, cheap dinner, and heads to Yoongi’s, since Yoongi never minds Kihyun being there before everyone else. They sit in companionable silence and work on their own stuff until the rest of the band piles in, and Kihyun appreciates the quiet. Yoongi gets him pretty well, never pushes any issue. And after bickering with Changkyun all morning — everyone always acts like Kihyun is some kind of monster, but Changkyun snips plenty at him, unprovoked, and why don’t _you_ try living with him and see how easy it is to keep your temper — and working for a while, that’s exactly what Kihyun needs. 

But as he approaches the garage, he can hear music playing already, and he stops just outside, frowning slightly. Did he miscalculate? Yoongi wouldn’t start alone, and that sounds like guitars. Well, one guitar. And one bass. Kihyun’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t start opening the garage, just stands by the wall and listens. They’re going over the chorus of track five, sounds like, and Changkyun keeps stumbling, but Chanyeol is patient and goes through it again until he gets it. 

Kihyun won’t interrupt. He takes out his phone and checks the time; another twenty minutes until practice is supposed to start. If anything, he can go to the corner store down the street and get something else to drink. He’s about to head over there, but then the music stops, and Chanyeol says something, and— Kihyun isn’t normally nosy _,_ but he can’t help but eavesdrop. They’re his bandmates, too, and they shouldn’t have any secrets from each other. Besides, it all sounds fairly innocent: Chanyeol is just telling him not to be too hard on himself, he’ll get it with practice, and Changkyun says he knows, let’s try it again, and then Chanyeol says, “I liked the lyrics you sent today.”

“Oh,” Changkyun says. “Thanks.”

“I mean, I _really_ liked them.”

“…Thanks,” Changkyun says again.

“Did he say anything about them?”

Muffled rustling, like Changkyun is moving around. “He doesn’t need to. If he likes it, he’ll write a song for it, it’s fine.”

“Is it fine?” Chanyeol asks, and Changkyun goes quiet at that, and the rustling stops, too. “Changkyun—”

“It’s fine,” Changkyun repeats, ghosting out the bassline again, just reminding himself how it sounds. “It’s always been like this.”

“But it doesn’t have to be,” Chanyeol points out. “Whose fault is it that it’s like this? Not yours, right?”

“He’s not ready,” Changkyun says. The bassline stops again. “And I’m not going to rush—”

“How long has it been?” Chanyeol interrupts again, and if he interrupts him one more time Kihyun will kick this door down and drag him out by the throat, but then he goes on, “After everything you’ve done for him? If he doesn’t see it by now, if he doesn’t want it or care, it’s never going to happen. When is he going to be ready? What is it going to take? You’ve been ready. If he wanted to, he would, right?”

“Chanyeol,” Changkyun starts to say, then stops. 

Chanyeol lowers his voice, but Kihyun can still hear. “He’s never going to come around,” he says. “You tried. You try all the time. And he _still_ doesn’t see you that way. So you’re here, suffering, waiting for him, _dying_ for him, and you show him your soul every single day and he still doesn’t care. He treats you like shit—”

“No, he doesn’t—”

“He treats you like shit,” Chanyeol insists. “And that’s never changed. He just likes the attention, he likes keeping you around for his ego, I don’t know. I don’t even know why you— anyway. He’s not on the same page.”

There is a long pause. Changkyun is probably sitting with his arms crossed, fingers of his left hand drumming out a rhythm on his ribs. “He’s not,” he finally says.

And maybe some part of Kihyun was expecting Changkyun to stand up for him, to defend him, to say that’s _not_ how it is, Chanyeol, what the fuck do you know? When Changkyun caught a bad cold, verging on pneumonia, last November, Kihyun took a week off work to stay with him, made soup for him from scratch, took his temperature every hour until his fever broke. He brushed cool fingers through his hair when Changkyun was delirious, he ran the bath for him, he stayed. Once Changkyun had a job interview three towns over, and Kihyun rented a car and drove him there, and they made a day of it, getting lunch at a truck stop in-between and playing Fall Out Boy too loud on the rented Prius speakers. Kihyun always picks up after him, makes sure he’s turned the oven off when he’s done heating up a frozen lasagna. On more than one occasion he’s taken calls as Changkyun, deepened his voice and pretended to be him when Changkyun was too sleepy to talk to a telemarketer or their landlord. Kihyun can be kind. Few and far between, but Changkyun is rude to him, too, criticizes the way he dresses and talks and sits, he pushed his way into Kihyun’s life and now he won’t leave, and isn’t that just as bad? But Changkyun doesn’t defend him. He doesn’t tell Chanyeol about any of that. Just sits there. He’s probably fidgeting with his lower lip, now, and not sticking up for Kihyun at all, so it really must be as bad as Chanyeol says. 

“But,” Chanyeol says, “I am.”

“Chanyeol,” Changkyun says carefully.

“Listen,” Chanyeol says, still quiet but more urgent. “He’s an idiot. He doesn’t know a good thing when he sees it. But I do. I see you.”

“Chanyeol—”

“He’s not here, and I am,” Chanyeol says. “As whatever you want me to be. Your friend, your boyfriend, your lover. Just let me help you. You don’t have to do everything alone. Let me in.”

Silence, and Kihyun can picture them, Chanyeol tall and leaning into him, one hand on Changkyun’s knee going from friendly to something else very quickly while Changkyun looks on, confounded. Or maybe pleasantly surprised, receptive, shifting to lean into Chanyeol in return, to pull his hand up closer. Kihyun can picture it. He saw Changkyun once, after a show — just once, and he didn’t mean to look, not at first, not at all. There had been a young man at the bar who had zeroed in on Changkyun as soon as they started setting up their instruments, and after their set Changkyun ended up buying him a drink, and later, in the makeshift dressing room — Changkyun on his knees, positioned at an angle where he could see the door when Kihyun half-opened it but the young man couldn’t. Kihyun should have jolted back, closed the door again, walked away, but he didn’t, he stood there in the doorway, and Changkyun looked at him, too, eyes dark and his lips stretched over the stranger’s cock, didn’t look away, showed Kihyun the stretch of his cheek and the spit running down his chin, and Kihyun stayed there as the young man finished down Changkyun’s eager throat, then picked him up from the floor, pushed him up against the wall and put his unfamiliar hand down Changkyun’s skinny jeans and kissed his neck, and all the while Changkyun was watching Kihyun, his fingers digging into the back of the stranger’s head and his mouth parted pink on a moan. Changkyun had his eyes open while he came. Kihyun fled, but only after he’d seen it all, the way Changkyun shivered and arched, turning his head to nose into the stranger’s hair, sated and yet still wanting. His eyes still on Kihyun. On the closing door. They never talked about it. Changkyun came home late that night, but the early-morning breeze still blew through Changkyun’s room into the hall, into Kihyun’s room, and Kihyun woke up cold.

“I’m not doing everything alone,” Changkyun says. His voice sounds very strange. “But thank you for being my friend. Let’s go over it again, I think I figured out what the problem is.”

“Changkyun,” Chanyeol says, but Changkyun is playing the bassline again, and Kihyun hears the creak of the door between Yoongi’s garage and his house as Yoongi comes to join them. That’s the end of that conversation, and when Kihyun checks the time, he still has another ten minutes before practice, so he goes to the convenience store, numb, and comes back five minutes later with a big bottle of cran-apple juice, his favorite, and apple-peach, Changkyun’s. 

“Hey, look, I’m on time,” Jooheon calls from down the street, smiling brightly and waving, and Kihyun remembers that he’s meant to be acting like everything is fine and normal and waves back, and they go into the garage together. 

Changkyun and Chanyeol aren’t sitting near each other, but other than that, they both look perfectly ordinary, and Changkyun barely acknowledges it when Kihyun hands him his juice, par for the course. Chanyeol is all smiles and professionalism, too, and if Yoongi picks up on any weirdness, he certainly doesn’t comment, and the rest of practice goes just fine as well. Up until the very end, at which point Chanyeol tries an experimental new guitar solo for track six and Kihyun tells him it sounds wrong and Chanyeol says it sounds just fine, actually, and Jooheon has to defuse the situation by suggesting the solo could go at the end instead, maybe, which isn’t a perfect solution but it makes Kihyun back off for now. Until they go through it again, and it sounds horrible at the end, too, and when Chanyeol says, “hm, I don’t love it there,” Kihyun says something to the effect of “I told you so, and maybe next time just take my word for it,” which goes over about as well as it always does, which is to say it doesn’t go over well at all. Everybody’s grouchy by the end of practice, even always-sunny Jooheon, and for once Changkyun is the one to say, “I think we’re done for the day, let’s try again next week,” and they all start to pack up.

Kihyun doesn’t say anything as they walk to the bus stop. Doesn’t offer to help Changkyun carry his things. Eavesdropping is a venial sin at worst, and it’s not like he overheard anything he didn’t already know, but he’d still rather not make Changkyun feel as though he’s being observed or spied on. It’s none of his business. Changkyun can do whatever he wants. If Chanyeol is what he wants, then he’s perfectly entitled to fuck up the dynamics of the band and take him. Kihyun doesn’t care. Changkyun falls asleep on the bus, his shoulder pressed to Kihyun’s, and Kihyun has the oddest feeling in his throat, like it’s closing up or like he’s about to cry, but nothing happens.

***

The next morning, Kihyun is reading his newspaper and Changkyun has the stove turned to a lower setting so he doesn’t burn his eggs. Changkyun is acting very normal and very casual, which is never a good sign. He comes over to sit at the table with his coffee, already placed within Kihyun’s grabbing range, and he says, “So I was thinking.”

“That’s a surprise,” Kihyun says, reflexively.

Changkyun continues with that unacknowledged. “About Chanyeol.”

Ah. Here it is. “What about him?”

“I just…” Changkyun pauses for a moment, and Kihyun’s eyes flicker up to him while he’s distracted in his thoughts, just to see that he’s looking at the ceiling with his brow furrowed. “I don’t know. I just don’t think he’s a good fit for the band anymore. Like, stylistically. We have different visions, and he likes a different kind of music anyway.”

“It’s done,” Kihyun says.

Changkyun nods and gets back up from the table, but leaves his coffee for Kihyun. Kihyun takes a sip without thinking, and it’s made how they both like it, mostly black with just enough sugar to keep it from being too pretentious. While Changkyun fiddles with the eggs, Kihyun gets out his phone and texts Chanyeol to ask if he wants to get lunch this weekend, just to talk real quick. Chanyeol replies fairly fast that he’s free on Sunday. So they set up a time to meet, and Kihyun sips Changkyun’s coffee again, and goes to work.

***

Chanyeol’s pretty punctual, and Kihyun is even more so, and this won’t take very long. They greet each other cordially, if coolly, but Kihyun waits until they’re both seated with their lunches to say, “Chanyeol, this isn’t going to be easy.”

“Oh boy,” Chanyeol says, raising his eyebrows.

Kihyun smiles tightly, but he won’t let Chanyeol try to scare him off. “It’s been wonderful having you in the band,” he says. “I really appreciate your talents, you’re a very talented guy. And I think we’re just getting a little small for you, you know?”

Chanyeol is completely unimpressed. “How long did it take you to come up with an angle to spin this at?” he says. “And _this_ is what you settled on? Pandering to me by saying I’m too good for your little band? That’s gotta sting.”

“Not at all,” Kihyun says lightly. “And it’s the truth. We’re going in different directions, and it’ll be better this way.”

“Fuck you,” Chanyeol says and stands, leaving his lunch behind. “You can’t keep living like this. Everyone isn’t going to do what you tell them to forever. Especially Changkyun.”

Kihyun doesn’t even dignify that with a response. “Best of luck to you in all your endeavors,” he says.

Chanyeol laughs humorlessly, flips him off, and walks away. He takes himself out of the band groupchat thirty minutes later, and neither Kihyun nor Changkyun says anything when Jooheon sends a question mark in response to the notification.

***

“Where’s Chanyeol?” Yoongi asks with vague interest, plugging the keyboard in. “He’s not usually this late. Did he say he couldn’t make it?”

“I kicked him out,” Kihyun says, easy and light. “Creative differences.”

There is a clatter as Jooheon’s drumsticks fall to the floor of the garage, and even Yoongi is shocked, blinking sleepy eyes from under his lavender bangs. “You did _what,”_ Yoongi says.

“We have a show in a _week,”_ Jooheon says.

Changkyun says nothing at all, and Kihyun shrugs again. “Guitarists are everywhere. We’ll find a temporary replacement.”

“Should you have,” Jooheon says uncertainly, “I don’t know, consulted us? The rest of the band? Before making a decision like that?”

“I didn’t see a reason to,” Kihyun says.

Yoongi makes an irritated noise, and when Kihyun looks at him, he sees that he seems more annoyed than usual, his frown active instead of just his resting bitch face. “What the fuck is wrong with you,” Yoongi says flatly.

“It’s my band,” Kihyun points out.

“It’s _our_ band,” Yoongi disagrees, actually raising his voice, “and he was a _good_ part of it, and you can’t just kick him out for no fucking reason.”

“I didn’t kick him out for no reason, I kicked him out because we had creative differences,” Kihyun says. “You don’t have to like it—”

“Oh, I do not like it,” Yoongi says.

“That’s fine, but my decision is final,” Kihyun says. “If you’re going to just be pissed at me, that’s not helpful. If you want to find a replacement guitarist, that would be helpful.”

Yoongi just looks at him in disappointed disbelief, and Changkyun _still_ isn’t saying anything, but Kihyun’s okay with taking the fall for him, and everyone already thought he was the bad guy, the hard-ass, the bitch, and this confirms it, and that’s fine, he’s never cared what people think of him. At least now it’s doing someone some good. 

“I might know a guy,” Jooheon says. “He’s still in college, and kind of dorky, but he’s probably free next weekend.”

“Sure, give him a call,” Kihyun says, and the next time he looks at Changkyun, comfortably holed up in a corner and tuning his bass, he sees that he’s wearing the smallest possible smile on his face.

***

What Jooheon neglected to mention about the guy he might know is that he is a college _freshman,_ and therefore acts the way all college freshmen do: he’s hyperactive, giggly, and squirmy, with barely two brain cells to rub together, and he brought a backpack hemorrhaging papers and binders with him to the informal audition. His hand is a little sticky when Kihyun shakes it. His name is Mark Lee, and he’s _extremely_ dorky, but once Jooheon gives him a rhythm and Yoongi gives him a key to start in, it turns out Mark Lee can fucking shred, so he’s in the band. It’s that simple. Changkyun likes him, too, and the band has an easier chemistry now, none of that weird tension with Chanyeol getting in the way. Mark says all his classes are in the mornings but he has a chemistry midterm next Wednesday, but other than that he can come to all their practices until the show. Great, all’s well that ends well. Then the practice sort of devolves into a shouting match because Kihyun insists that track four needs a different intro, and Changkyun insists that it does not, and Mark is kind of freaked out by the whole thing but not to the point that he wants to quit already. So things are fine. Changkyun and Kihyun have dinner in stony silence, but that’s how they always are, and Kihyun washes Changkyun’s dishes after him while Changkyun tries to fix their broken TV. Things are just fine.

***

“This is some heavy stuff, haha!” Mark says, rereading over the lyric sheet Kihyun had printed and marked up for him, highlighting where he’s meant to sing.

“Yes, well, that’s Changkyun,” Kihyun says drily. 

“Like, it’s beautiful, but jeez,” Mark says. He can carry a tune, at least, and although his voice is far peppier than Chanyeol’s had been, the auditory color of the band hasn’t changed all that much since Chanyeol’s departure. “I wish we could practice this one more time before we go on, oh man. That chorus is like a tongue-twister.”

“Changkyun is very proud of my diction,” Kihyun says. “Just kinda yell ‘yeah!’ at the end of the line, you don’t need to sing the whole thing.”

“I’ll do my best,” Mark shrugs.

He’d fucking better; they’re onstage in ten minutes. Kihyun takes another sip of his honey water, and nods to Jooheon when Jooheon comes back from seeing how the audience is doing. “There’s a _lot_ of people out there,” he says, giving two thumbs-up.

“Yeah, I invited my friends!” Mark enthuses.

Well, there’s the perk of having a college freshman in the band. Kihyun and Yoongi exchange brief nods of acknowledgment, having made up since the Chanyeol debacle even though Mark annoys Yoongi in just about every imaginable way, and Kihyun sips his water again, glancing to the other side of the backstage to make sure Changkyun is still okay. He’s fine, just skulking in a dark corner, his natural state. Hearing what Jooheon and Mark had just said, he leans forward to peek around the stacks of sound equipment so he can see past the stage, and the light catches his face just so. His eyes are so sad — they always are, and Kihyun never knows what to do, how to help him when he’s down so deep in a place Kihyun can’t reach, but for a moment, they’re bright and he seems almost excited, like he can’t wait to get out there and show the people of the world what they can do. Kihyun swallows, finding that his mouth is dry, but his hand doesn’t reach to unscrew the cap of his thermos, and he doesn’t look away from Changkyun, who is now doing a silent count of the heads in the audience. He does this before every show, never tells anyone what the exact number is, but if it’s higher than it had been at their previous gig, his lips pull into this smile, small and private and warm, and Kihyun can see it building at the corners of his little mouth, starting in the crinkles of his eyes, and—

“Um, Kihyun? I think I left my inhaler in the van, do you think I have time to go grab it?”

Kihyun scrambles. He looks to Mark quickly, but it’s too late — Mark’s head is already turning to follow the direction of Kihyun’s gaze, seeing what he was looking at with his face all tender like that, and there’s no way to hide, no way to laugh it off, and Mark stutters out, “Haha, um, sorry, did you hear, uh, I just asked if—”

“Yes, sure, go now, be quick,” Kihyun snaps. “Yoongi, keys.”

“Unclench, you’re fine,” Yoongi says and tosses Mark the keys to the van without looking.

“BRB!” Mark says and scurries away, leaving Kihyun alone.

But the damage has been done. Mark saw. And Kihyun doesn’t even know what Mark saw, or what he thinks he saw. Kihyun doesn’t know anything, that’s the problem. It was easy for Changkyun, so easy. He’s always been in tune with his emotions. Even before they had to get to know each other, Kihyun knew that about him. But not everything is that clear-cut for Kihyun, and the distinction between what he feels for Changkyun and what he thinks he should be feeling gets finer and finer every day, and everybody acts like he’s cruel and heartless and incapable of love but Kihyun just doesn’t know what to think or do or feel, whom to ask or where to begin. He’s just not sure. And he can’t risk Changkyun on a not-sure. So he sings what Changkyun gives him — and it’s not like it’s easy on him, hearing Changkyun’s darkest thoughts about him laid bare, let alone writing music to them and performing him onstage — and he knows Changkyun is waiting, but Kihyun is waiting, too.

“Hey,” Changkyun says, all of a sudden very close, and Kihyun jerks in surprise, blinking at him. “You’ll kill it out there.”

“I’m not nervous,” Kihyun says, his heart pounding. Mark jogs back in, wheezy and out of breath and shaking the inhaler already, and Kihyun looks at him instead. It’s so much. That’s what people don’t understand. All of Changkyun’s love and longing and devastation. How can Kihyun compare to the version of himself that Changkyun wants the world to see? How can anything Kihyun feels survive in the face of Changkyun’s years and years of poetry and ballads and hatefuck anthems? He knows Changkyun will settle for anything Kihyun gives him. But Changkyun should want more. 

“Good,” Changkyun says and smiles at him.

The other band playing tonight vacates the stage, and Kihyun goes on first, the others filing after him to take their places. Kihyun never gets stage fright, never. But this is something like it. The lights come back on, and he hears Mark tuning one last time behind him, and then the low thrum of Changkyun doing the same, dark and steady, always there, no matter what, a constant. Kihyun takes as deep of a breath as he can, curls his fingers around the mic stand, and leans into the light, blinking slow to keep from being blinded.

“We are Tyger,” he says, and sings Changkyun’s heart out.

***

“You should talk to him,” Yoongi says, as if it’s that easy.

***

After the gig, they go to McDonald’s at Mark’s request, and then long-suffering Yoongi drives everyone back to their respective locations. Jooheon is first, then Mark on-campus, and finally Changkyun and Kihyun at their apartment. They’re simultaneously exhausted from the hour of jumping around screaming onstage and still buzzed on adrenaline, and Kihyun leans his head back against the seat and tries to ignore the ringing in his ears. Once Yoongi has dropped them off outside their building, everything is altogether too quiet all of a sudden, and this time Kihyun reaches to take the amp from Changkyun’s hand while Changkyun tries to fish for the keys in his tour bag. 

“It’s okay,” Changkyun says, visibly surprised, and that only makes Kihyun feel worse, the naked shock on Changkyun’s face. As though it’s so rare for Kihyun to do something helpful for him, so unexpected. But Kihyun doesn’t give the amp back, just carries it inside, and this thing is so fucking heavy, he doesn’t know how Changkyun does it. He sets it in the living room, then goes straight through to his bathroom to wash his face of the dust and sweat of the stage, and he can hear Changkyun still very much awake, moving around and possibly making a midnight snack in the kitchen.

Kihyun aches. Everything hurts. If this is how Changkyun feels all the time, then Kihyun understands why his lyrics are the way that they are. Kihyun turns off his bathroom light, changes into a sleep shirt and clean boxers, and crawls into bed, wondering why he feels so empty. The show had been great; the crowd loved them, and a couple people had even bought their shitty home-made CD, and Jackson had brought his record-label paramour, who seemed impressed, if standoffish, but Kihyun is still cold. 

“Hey,” Changkyun says in a soft voice, and Kihyun jerks upright, scrambling to pull the sheets around himself. “Relax, it’s just me.”

“I know,” Kihyun says.

Changkyun is standing in the doorway, still fully dressed. His eyes are smudged dark tonight, just a touch of eyeliner to make him look more punk rock. Messy hair, skinny jeans, a chain hanging down from his belt. He’s so good at playing bass. Kihyun has never asked him why he picked bass over any other instrument, when he started learning music. He barely even knows what his life was like before he met Kihyun. He’s never asked about that, either. Maybe he should. “I’m going to bed,” Changkyun says. “You want anything?”

Kihyun’s breath shudders out of him. He’s shaking, and he doesn’t even know why, trembling hard enough that Changkyun can probably see it in the dim light of his room, streaming in through the doorway past Changkyun’s body. “No,” Kihyun whispers. “No, not yet.”

“Okay,” Changkyun says. “Let me know.”

He clicks the hallway light off. But Kihyun can still see his silhouette. Changkyun wouldn’t laugh at him, Kihyun knows. He’d hold him until he stopped shaking. _Let me know_ means _whenever you’re ready,_ and Kihyun just isn’t ready yet. 

Changkyun says good night, and Kihyun doesn’t reply, lets him go back out and down the hall. He hears the click of his bedroom lamp, and Kihyun closes his eyes and pictures Changkyun getting undressed, getting into bed, thinking about the show, about Kihyun. Thinking about you, thinking about me, thinking about you.

“But soon,” Kihyun breathes, although Changkyun is long-gone, probably curled up under his black comforter by now, dark head cast out on his pillow, eyelashes sweeping drowsy over his cheeks. 

He knows Changkyun’s door is open. The breeze is coming through, and if it’s cold in Kihyun’s room as a result, it must be even colder in Changkyun’s. But his door is open, so Kihyun can come in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh thank you so much for reading!!!! i just got this idea stuck in my head (and thank you of course as always to hyb, my eternal changki enabler and icon, and ellie, the Demon Beta From Hell, for the support and encouragement) and had to write it!! i know this is a random little weird thingy but i loved writing it, so pls let me know what you thought in a comment or come talk to me on:
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/paratazxis) (there’s also a link to my k*fi on there for interested parties) / [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/paratazxis) / (also here is the [official playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dnJSvAR8RlN8DPP0yCVZh?si=C7hAV9EBTKC7L8y31JPRSQ))
> 
> i’m still hard at work on my very large changki project. if you enjoyed this, please feel free to subscribe to me and there will be more changki to come! a whole lot more! consider this a sneak preview (although the large changki is NOT about this band au, it’s about something else). also not @ how this fic has chanyeol and yoongi and mark lee but not, like, most of the other members of monsta x im so sorry everyone nfksjdnkfjbdjand!!! i promise i didnt forget about them, they will be Very much in murderverse (my big changki fic hehehe). i’m still planning on putting cdf7 out by the end of summer too!! thank you for reading and for the support, i’ll be back soon!!! stay frosty out there!!!


	2. to make you think of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever’s wrong with Kihyun, it’s only getting worse. And Changkyun just hopes he can figure out whatever it is before it’s too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i thought this was a oneshot but. i felt like i’d told half a story! so here’s the rest. thank u so much to ellie and roux and hyb and everyone who enjoyed part 1!!!!!!!! again, playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dnJSvAR8RlN8DPP0yCVZh?si=Rl-EJXI-QQutSHXQvy-gAQ), title from bang the doldrums by fob 

“Do you think Kihyun is okay?”

Yoongi stops chewing and fixes Changkyun with one of his should-be-patented unimpressed looks. “Uh, yeah? He’s always okay.”

“It’s just,” Changkyun says thoughtfully, “lately, he’s been sleeping with me.”

Yoongi’s unimpressed look sours into disgust quickly. “I do _not_ want to hear about that.”

“No, no, not like that,” Changkyun says and offers Yoongi another Twizzler. “Literally just sleeping. We don’t even touch. He just sleeps in my bed, with me.”

“…Okay?” Yoongi says.

Changkyun bravely barrels onward, although Yoongi is visibly losing interest fast. This is the important part, anyway, he’s been dying to get a second opinion on this for weeks. “And,” he says, pausing to add significance and weight, “he _carried my amp.”_

He looks at Yoongi expectantly, but Yoongi gives him nothing at all, doesn’t even raise an eyebrow or wrinkle his nose. 

“Which he never does,” Changkyun continues. Why is Yoongi not more shocked by this? This is a huge fucking deal. “So I feel like something’s up. Or wrong.”

“I truly have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Yoongi says flatly.

“But you haven’t noticed anything?” Changkyun insists, and Yoongi’s patience, already running on E, coughs out fumes and sputters to a dead halt by the side of the highway. He stands, finishes off his beer, and goes back over to his keyboard.

“I’m not your relationship counselor,” Yoongi says, frowning deeply as he turns the keyboard on. “And I don’t want to hear about whatever is going on with him. He seems fine. That’s my take. Never talk to me about this again.”

“Something is definitely wrong,” Changkyun murmurs to himself, finishes off the pack of Twizzlers, and picks his bass up. “Alright, take it from the top.”

Yoongi leads them into track seven, just getting in some extra practice before the rest of the guys get there, especially the kid, who Changkyun thinks is hilarious but whom Yoongi despises. Changkyun is surprised that Kihyun allowed him into the band, but, well. He’s been doing a lot of surprising things lately. Especially carrying Changkyun’s amp. Yes, yes, after years of dodging each other and avoiding certain situations and revelations, one would _think_ that Kihyun crawling into Changkyun’s bed every night, tired and prickly but still _there,_ close enough to touch but never touchable, would be the more surprising of the two issues currently keeping Changkyun’s head in a fog, but no, it’s that one night, three weeks ago, after their gig at the club, when Kihyun had taken Changkyun’s heavy amp from his hand and carried it up the stairs, all the way into their living room. Changkyun tries every day, countless times, to remember the look on his face when he’d done that, but the tricky thing with memory is that every recollection of an incident changes the memory itself, so each time he thinks about it, tries to picture it, he loses how it really was. And since then, Yoongi caved and let Changkyun keep his amp at his place instead, so Changkyun hasn’t even had the chance to see if Kihyun would do it again, what his face would do if he were to. 

Kihyun comes to the garage a half-hour later. He’s beautiful all the time, but he’s particularly beautiful when he’s done with work, all worn out by capitalism and so exhausted it’s making him mad, sleeves rolled up past his wrists, hair coming down from its neat brushed-back style. He speaks only to Yoongi once he’s in, ignores Changkyun completely, and Changkyun ignores him in return, idly picking out the bassline to a song he heard on the radio the other day. In the meantime, Jooheon and the kid come in, and from there, it’s business as usual: they go through the setlist, work on some new songs, Kihyun and Changkyun get in a fight over something inconsequential, and Changkyun’s heart thrills at the way Kihyun’s eyes go bright when he’s in the heat of it, his voice sharper and snappier with each time Changkyun talks back to him. Mark quivers in a corner, pretending to be doing homework like the nervous kid of soon-to-be-divorced parents, and eventually they come to some sort of conclusion, play the song however Kihyun wanted to play it, then split for the night. 

Changkyun would be alright, if this were to be how things stayed forever. But it seems like Kihyun wants a change. But to what end, Changkyun can’t imagine, because Kihyun acts so normally every other second of every day, still steals his coffee in the mornings even though he claims not to like it, still leaves passive-aggressive notes on Changkyun’s hoodies and jeans strewn around common areas of the apartment like that’s not more work than just tossing them in the washing machine himself, sleeps in late on weekends, doesn’t speak to Changkyun except to criticize him or tell him about something interesting he read in the paper, and Changkyun just looks at the mole next to his mouth and nods whenever Kihyun takes a break to breathe. Things are totally dysfunctional, which is to say they are absolutely perfect, but — something is wrong. Kihyun’s not okay. And Changkyun can’t figure out why, or what he wants, or what he’s doing, but — here they are, getting ready for bed, and Kihyun is brushing his teeth and Changkyun is already curled up under the sheets, scrolling through the comments on the latest article he’d published to see how thoroughly he’s being eviscerated for his opinions on David Lynch, and then the hallway light snaps dark and Kihyun comes into the room, pulls back the covers, and slides into bed next to Changkyun.

Well, Changkyun’s not going to talk first. It’s been two weeks of this. His eyes don’t even flicker to watch Kihyun as he gets comfortable in Changkyun’s bed. He knows what he looks like, besides; he’s certainly pictured it enough times, and reality’s not all that. The bed dips differently with Kihyun in it, and he steals the blankets when he sleeps, but Changkyun doesn’t care. He wakes up warm anyway. 

“I have an early morning tomorrow,” Kihyun murmurs, not looking up from his phone, not acknowledging that he is _in Changkyun’s bed._

“That’s fine,” Changkyun says. He loves that, that Kihyun isn’t apologizing for waking Changkyun with his alarm and, ostensibly, expecting Changkyun to get up with him as well even though Changkyun isn’t the one with the office job, so Changkyun can make coffee for Kihyun to steal; he loves it when Kihyun makes demands on his time, all Changkyun has ever wanted is for Kihyun to feel entitled to him. Kihyun smells very faintly of toothpaste, but his is spearmint, whereas Changkyun’s is wintermint. If they kissed, it would taste bitter. Changkyun recognizes that thought as it comes in and lets it go, because what the fuck is the point. Beside him, Kihyun is plugging in his phone and turning onto his side, the harsh lines of his back offered up to Changkyun, and Changkyun can barely see him in the dim anymore but looks nonetheless.

Kihyun doesn’t say good night. He says very little, in fact, and has ever since the first time he did this. Changkyun usually stays up late, but he does so in bed — Kihyun’s preference, when he has a late night, is to sit in the living room so he can see out of the window, give himself an excuse to get distracted from work or a book or doing his taxes — and so he was awake already when his bedroom door creaked and Changkyun, having placidly been expecting this for the better part of three years, just looked up calmly to see him.

“Move over,” Kihyun had said, and Changkyun moved over, but as Kihyun didn’t immediately wind his arms around Changkyun and kiss him on the mouth and declare his undying love for him, how could he have been such a fool all this time, etc, Changkyun was starting to get a little confused.

“Uh,” Changkyun had said as Kihyun burrowed under the sheets, pulling them all the way up to his hair and shivering.

“I got cold,” Kihyun replied, muffled. “Shut up.”

But Changkyun was still confused, and the reality of the situation hit him all at once, and, dazed and wondering if it was finally happening, he said, “Is it fina—”

“No,” Kihyun snapped, then, more insistently, “ _Shut up.”_

For fear of Kihyun leaving if Changkyun pushed it further than that, Changkyun shut up for once. He could have said plenty more: that maybe it’s the sealant around Kihyun’s window, and then Kihyun would say “I’ll check it tomorrow” but really that meant Changkyun would have to check it tomorrow, or maybe he could have just asked if he was alright and risked getting his head bitten off. Kihyun didn’t say anything else after that, and was asleep a few minutes later, his hands curled in the sheets and his head tipped slightly to the left, but Changkyun couldn’t sleep a wink, hyperaware of the miracle of Kihyun in bed next to him, each breath, each motion, all so startling and unfamiliar and fragile and strange. Not quite where he belonged, which would have been in Changkyun’s arms, but very nearly there.

And since then he’s been doing it every single night. Doesn’t acknowledge that this is strange, and after the first three times, he no longer brings up the excuse of being cold. Changkyun is barely fazed anymore. He finishes reading the comments on his article, plugs in his phone, and slides down so his head is on the pillow, still looking at the faint outline of Kihyun in the darkness. There’s not even six inches of space between them, but it feels infinite, impassable, and although Changkyun has never been so close to him, he still feels like he’s never been further. Kihyun always talks about how he’ll never understand Changkyun, and some part of Changkyun is sure that he’ll never understand Kihyun, either. He longs to. Yearns to. Something is very wrong with Kihyun, Changkyun knows, but he doesn’t know even where to _begin_ to help him, because the kind of help Changkyun has always offered is the kind Kihyun has never, ever wanted.

(In the morning, Kihyun’s alarm wakes them both, and Changkyun whines and complains and rolls around pathetically until Kihyun brains him with a pillow, and although his ears are covered and all sound is muted, Changkyun thinks he hears Kihyun laughing as he does it.)

When they’re not in bed, Kihyun acts perfectly normally. Their days are the same. The band is sounding great. Getting rid of Chanyeol was a good idea for myriad reasons, but Changkyun tries not to give him too much thought. Sometimes when Kihyun doesn’t say anything for quite a while, Changkyun imagines Kihyun saying something like _but it’d be easy with him,_ and Changkyun taking Kihyun’s tense hand in his own and saying _do I fucking look like I want anything in my life to be easy?_ But Kihyun never says that, of course. They’ll never talk about the real reason Changkyun wanted Chanyeol gone, because Kihyun will never ask and Changkyun will never tell. It’s better that way. Changkyun can keep his fantasies, Kihyun on a white horse rescuing him from the loveless drudgery of his life Before, and Kihyun can continue living without a single thought for whatever goes on in Changkyun’s head. He didn’t even ask why Changkyun wanted him kicked out, even though they could both tell the line about differing creative visions was bullshit. Sometimes Changkyun remembers that moment, Kihyun not even looking up, so casual, Changkyun’s very own mob boss executing underlings with the lift of a perfectly manicured finger, and gets all tingly. He loves it when Kihyun reminds him that this buttoned-up existence is all a pretense, that Kihyun is a wild animal in a temporary cage, that the lock holding him in is fragile at best. So he doesn’t bring it up. Keeps that memory for himself, tucked away at the back of the cupboard with the fine china and the family silver, too nice to use even for guests. Kihyun’s never boring, anyway. There’s always something new with him.

For instance, today. Kihyun’s at work. Changkyun is technically writing another article, this one about a particularly toxic new movement in the French philosophy scene, but he’s been down a YouTube rabbit hole for hours now, learning about very rare French potatoes instead. Business as usual, he’s sure. It’s freelance work, the magazine he’s currently with can’t very well expect _consistency_ from him. So he’s fine. Peachy. Eating a thin slice of prosciutto very slowly because he only brought one from the fridge in an exercise of self-restraint and he doesn’t want to have to get up to track down some more. Then his phone rings, and the issue with Changkyun’s phone is that when he first got Kihyun’s number — how many times did he chant it to himself while getting off, he doesn’t even _know_ — he deliberately set the most generic ringtone for him by way of pretending he didn’t care about him, but now the sound of Marimba makes Changkyun’s knees go gelatinous. It’s a problem when he’s out in public, but this is fine. He answers the call.

“Thank you for calling Im Enterprises, this is Changkyun, how may I direct your call,” he says, tucking the phone in between his shoulder and ear.

“Did you forget the electrician is coming today?” Kihyun says in that _tone,_ at his very prissiest, and Changkyun smiles to himself, saves his document, and closes his computer so he can focus on him better.

“Good afternoon to you, too,” he replies. “No, I didn’t forget, the key’s already under the mat. You could have done that, you know.”

“It’s _your_ fault the light blew out, so I’m not doing _shit_ to fix _your_ issue,” Kihyun snips. He must be having a long day, lots of meetings or task reports or whatever it is he has to do when he’s away from Changkyun. Unfathomable. “And if you didn’t have headphones in all the time you wouldn’t even have to put the key out, you could just let him in when he knocks.”

“Interesting idea,” Changkyun says. “But unfortunately, I can’t accept any suggestions that weren’t formally submitted in the suggestion box.”

Kihyun makes a barely-restrained frustrated noise like a growl, and Changkyun’s smile only widens, picturing him now, trapped at his desk, that line by the side of his lips when he gets particularly annoyed. “I’m just not going to sit in pitch darkness at the dining table for days again,” he threatens. “You can change the fuse yourself for all I care. Just make sure it gets done.”

Why are they fighting about this? What, honestly, are they even fighting about? Ugh, Changkyun’s life is so good. “Aw, you shouldn’t trust me to change the fuse,” he says. “End up with half the building in a blackout.”

“At least you’re self-aware,” Kihyun mutters.

And normally that’s where it ends. Kihyun had a question: did Changkyun forget about the electrician? Now he has an answer: no, Changkyun did not forget. Normally here’s where Kihyun hangs up on him without saying goodbye, and Changkyun goes back to writing and doesn’t stop smiling for the better part of an hour. But Kihyun isn’t hanging up, and Changkyun listens closely and can hear him breathing.

“You still there?” Changkyun asks, just to be sure.

“Oh,” Kihyun says, and he sounds surprised, too. “Yes.”

And then he doesn’t say anything else. Again. He’s still just breathing, and Changkyun can sort of hear the sounds of his office in the background, and— what is this? Changkyun is starting to worry. He’s content to just sit there and enjoy Kihyun’s silence, he always is, but Kihyun doesn’t do that. “…Was there something else you wanted, or?” he prompts.

Rustling. Kihyun very hurriedly says, “I have to go,” and hangs up. 

Changkyun stares bemusedly at his phone once the line goes dead. Whatever’s wrong with Kihyun, it’s only getting worse. And Changkyun just hopes he can figure out whatever it is before it’s too late.

They go grocery shopping on the weekend and somehow end up coming home with fewer things than were on their list because, among other issues, they couldn’t agree on a brand of toaster waffles, never mind that neither of them even likes toaster waffles. Kihyun helps Changkyun untangle a weird lyric in the bridge of a song they’ve been working on. The fuse is fixed and the light over the dining table works again. And Kihyun still sleeps in Changkyun’s bed and doesn’t let Changkyun touch him, and one time when Changkyun is drifting off he suddenly _remembers_ the look on Kihyun’s face when he’d taken the amp from him and he bolts upright, heart pounding in his chest, but it’s a false alarm, he loses the image again in another second. Kihyun is out cold by his side, a small, dark shape curled tight in Changkyun’s sheets, and he almost looks _ordinary_ when he sleeps, like you’d never guess that a man who sleeps like this could have a voice like his, and Changkyun really doesn’t know if things are better than they’ve ever been or if he’s actually miserable this time around. When he lies back down, he dares to move half an inch closer to Kihyun, and Kihyun doesn’t wake up to care, so it’s alright. Changkyun just sleeps. Kihyun’s breath is shallow but even. 

It’s easy not to worry when Kihyun is there. When Kihyun is gone, that’s when the worry sets in. Changkyun just doesn’t know what to think. Nobody will talk to him. Of the members of Tyger (the name stuck, Kihyun let him keep the name, Kihyun _likes the name),_ Yoongi’s obviously out, and Jooheon’s stance on The Whole Kihyun Situation is that Changkyun is better off moving on, cutting his losses while he can still escape in one piece. And Mark Lee has never had an emotion he didn’t learn about from Scooby-Doo, so that’s a nonstarter. Changkyun’s coworkers are few and far between, and they don’t know him enough to endure his emotional ramblings. That’s what the blog used to be for, but, well. After finding out Kihyun had known about it all along, the dangerous temptation of wanting Kihyun to _pity_ him was rapidly growing to be too much, so that ceased to be a viable outlet. So all Changkyun can really do is stew in his own juices, procrastinate his work, fret, and pine. Once again, business as usual.

Maybe he’s moving out. He always complains about how rickety this place is — Changkyun thinks it’s perfect, and Kihyun picked it out as much as he did — and how much he hates having a roommate, so maybe he found someplace better and this is survivor’s guilt over leaving Changkyun all alone in the deathtrap. With the house centipedes in the entry stairwell and their heights marked in the bathroom door after an argument over who was taller. The lines are crooked because they kept making each other laugh too hard to be able to get a good assessment, and as a result they’re crossed, unclear which line is whose, X marks the spot Changkyun knew for a fucking fact he was screwed for life. Like it or not, Kihyun has history here. And he’ll need Changkyun to drop him from the lease. So he could be buttering him up for that. That’s probably all it is.

Or maybe it’s something worse. Maybe he’s sick. The opposite of survivor’s guilt: a dying man’s charity. Changkyun goes cold whenever he considers this as an option, because Kihyun can never die, it’s all wrong, that’s not how this is going to go, and besides, even if he does, Changkyun’s no Shakespeare but the man knew what he was talking about when he said _So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee._ But that’s beyond worst-case. That’s unthinkable. No. Kihyun isn’t sick, he’s just… going through a phase. Changkyun is great at phases. He’ll figure this out.

The final option Changkyun considers, and this one is very silly indeed, is just that Kihyun is being weird and/or nice just for the sake of it. He’s realized that Changkyun has suffered, and he’d like to make amends. Completely unnecessary, of course, and even more unrealistic, but Changkyun is trying to cover all his bases here. Honestly, if this one is right, then Changkyun is more worried than ever. If Kihyun has decided to become _nice,_ then Changkyun truly has no idea how to help him.

“I got us a gig,” Jooheon announces at the next band practice. “Well, Mark got us a gig, but I got us Mark, so technically, I got us a gig.”

“Thanks a lot, _Mark,”_ Yoongi mutters.

“Really?” Kihyun says with interest. “What kind of gig?”

“My dorm’s having, like, a big mid-semester blowout bash—”

“Use words he’ll understand,” Changkyun suggests, and Kihyun isn’t facing him but Changkyun knows he’s frowning in that pinched way he has as Mark stammers and stumbles his way through a more comprehensible explanation of the event they’ve been booked to play. It’s basically a huge house party, and Mark’s dorm houses 900 students, so this will be their biggest crowd to date if even a fraction of them show up. 

“—so I can keep our stuff at my dorm, if Y— Mr. Min doesn’t want to bring the van out again,” Mark finishes anxiously.

Changkyun looks amusedly at Yoongi, who is entirely unashamed of having bullied the teenager into calling him _Mr. Min._ Fuck, Changkyun had better step in before Kihyun starts getting any similar ideas. In fact, it’s a wonder that Kihyun hadn’t gone the Mr. Yoo route first. 

“Also,” Mark continues as Changkyun leans up behind Kihyun and murmurs, _don’t even think about it, you waited too long and he’s not scared of you anymore_ and Kihyun jerks his shoulder back to make him fuck off, “do we have merch? My boys have been asking.”

“Merch,” Kihyun repeats, arms crossed.

“Yeah,” Mark says, visibly faltering and losing confidence with each passing second. “Like, swag.”

“Swag,” Yoongi says stonily.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Changkyun shrugs.

“So do I,” Jooheon pipes up.

Kihyun finally turns to fix Changkyun with a dark, unimpressed glare, and Changkyun just raises his eyebrows at him. “Merch means free marketing,” he points out. 

“Free marketing, that _we_ have to pay to get made,” Kihyun points out right back. “Is money for designing and printing coming out of _your_ pocket? Because it’s sure as fuck not coming out of mine.”

“We can design it together, that’s how bands usually do it,” Changkyun says, “and printing… I dunno, who knows a guy?”

“We can’t just _who knows a guy_ our way into a successful career,” Kihyun snaps.

“That being said,” Yoongi says, “I do know a guy, actually.”

Sometimes Changkyun envies Yoongi for the way Kihyun treats him. Like an equal, like someone he respects. Kihyun never rejects Yoongi’s ideas outright just because they’re Yoongi’s. Changkyun knows they hang out sometimes, just the two of them. That probably makes a pretty picture. Kihyun calm. But there’s plenty Kihyun does for Changkyun that he will never, ever do for Yoongi, so Changkyun doesn’t concern himself much with Kihyun having friends. Now, Kihyun looks more reasonably at Yoongi and says, “Well… find out about his rates. As long as it’s not too expensive, we could figure something out.”

“I didn’t mean to, like, create an issue,” Mark says, and Jooheon shakes his head.

“It’s not you,” he says. “It’s a great idea, Mark, I’ve honestly wanted merch for a long time.”

Oh, to be a freshman in college again, when every compliment, no matter how minor, seemed like the most incredible gift from the heavens. Mark immediately goes scarlet and bashful, and Changkyun looks to Kihyun again, leans forward to talk to him, his elbows on his knees and his expression serious. “Hey,” he says until Kihyun looks back. “This is a good thing. Know why?”

Kihyun’s face is perfect marble, those cold, calculating eyes not warming even for a moment, but at least he doesn’t tell Changkyun not to tell him why. “Did you hear what Mark said? His boys have been asking about merch,” Changkyun continues. “That means _fans._ We have fans, Kihyun.”

“Is that what that means?” Kihyun says, but he’s visibly considering it, Changkyun can see the big, beautiful wheels of his brain turning. 

“I’ll cover the cost,” Changkyun adds. “If that’s what it comes down to for you. I think it’d be great for us. Obviously merch isn’t a big break, but. Hey, people wearing our shirts around, you never know who’ll see. It’s worth a shot.”

“Hm,” Kihyun says.

“This is a good thing,” Changkyun finishes gently. And, taking an insane, crazy risk, he tilts up his chin and says, “You need to settle down a little,” a line from Kihyun’s favorite movie in recent years, one he even let Changkyun take him out to see. Just once, and they fought over the _message_ of the film the whole way home, but still, it’s the closest thing to a date Changkyun has gotten yet, so that’s another memory to unfold only on special occasions. They shared popcorn; Kihyun covered Changkyun’s mouth with his hand when Changkyun chewed too loudly during a crucial scene. Changkyun wanted to kiss him so badly that he had to excuse himself and go stand outside in the cold, breathing in the night air, until the craving passed, or at least grew more manageable, because wanting to kiss Kihyun is always there, the albatross around his neck, a constant, a touchstone. By the time he got back, Kihyun had finished off the popcorn alone, and he whispered _sorry_ to Changkyun, and Changkyun ended up missing the next five minutes of the plot completely because he was too fucking happy.

“Don’t bring _Phantom Thread_ into this,” Kihyun says, but he can’t help it, he starts to smile just a little and turns away again quickly before Changkyun can really see. 

“So are we doing it?” Yoongi asks.

Kihyun lifts one elegant shoulder. “Everybody think about some logo ideas. We’ll discuss next time.”

“Ooh, homework, my favorite,” Changkyun says, but Kihyun has humored him enough for the day and, as a result, ignores him completely.

Thank God. He’s back. God, he really had Changkyun thinking that he was going to die of an unspecified disease by year’s end. Changkyun leans back, picks his bass up, grins at the nape of Kihyun’s neck, picks out the opening notes to a song he’s had bouncing around his brain for a week or two. Maybe he’ll play it for Kihyun later, and Kihyun will say he hates it, then rewrite the verse melody for him, then Changkyun will say he hates it now, too, then they’ll give each other the silent treatment for about an hour, then have leftover Thai for dinner. Perfect. Paradise. Bliss. Changkyun keeps his eyes on the soft curve of Kihyun’s hair around his ear as they go through a couple of their songs, then start picking out what to do for their dorm show setlist, and they’re home again in a couple more hours, both tired but not in a worse mood than usual. Changkyun has no idea if Mark knows they live together; he’d love to see his reaction when he finds out, since he probably thinks Kihyun is seconds away from stabbing Changkyun to death at any given time. Which isn’t inaccurate, but Kihyun also gets up to turn the fan on for Changkyun in the summer and buys him the kind of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies that he likes, so all in all, it balances out. 

At any rate, Kihyun is normal again. None of this strange careful behavior. Changkyun never gets his hopes up, but he at least won’t let them sink any lower over this. Kihyun isn’t dying. He’s not moving out. He’s fine. Changkyun’s dear lady Disdain, as ill-tempered and finicky and particular as ever, somehow alright with maintaining the chaos that is Changkyun by his side forever. He was going through some sort of phase, a rough patch within himself that Changkyun couldn’t smooth out, but now he’s fine. Back to equilibrium. He’s perfectly harsh to Changkyun over dinner, perfectly neutral as he washes his face and gets ready for bed, but the second Changkyun gets comfortable, the second Changkyun exhales and thinks the worst is over and he doesn’t have to worry any more, Kihyun goes and mixes things up.

“Oh, okay,” Changkyun says, Kihyun suddenly in his arms, but _also_ not in the kind of way Changkyun has been expecting since they first met. Of course Kihyun is an angry cuddler. Changkyun is big on physical affection, sure, but he’s friends with plenty of people who aren’t, and somehow not a single one of them acts this _mad_ about snuggling. And Kihyun had been the one to initiate it! Changkyun had gotten into bed, and Kihyun had turned over, grabbed a handful of his shirt, pulled him in, and now here they are, entangled.

“Be quiet,” Kihyun mumbles.

“Kihyun,” Changkyun tries, “this is very difficult for me, tell me what you’re doing and I’ll—” 

“Do you _ever_ shut up?” Kihyun snaps.

Kihyun should know damn well by now that he does not. But Changkyun will make an effort, so he keeps his arms around Kihyun where Kihyun had put them and just tries to enjoy this, Kihyun narrow and brittle and totally unyielding in his grip. Sleeping next to him had been bad enough, Kihyun kicks something fierce and steals the covers and lies about it in the morning, but cuddling with him is _terrible,_ so uncomfortable, every plane of Kihyun’s body at perfect odds with Changkyun’s. He’s angular where Changkyun is softer, he’s so bony, restless, fidgety. He’s acting like he can’t get close enough, clambering all over him, Changkyun half-pinned underneath him although they’d both started on their sides, and Changkyun wants to help him, wants to understand, but Kihyun is giving him absolutely nothing to work with, and now Changkyun is thinking maybe it’s brain cancer, maybe it’s MS, or maybe he got a job far, far away and he’s leaving and he won’t look back so he’s giving Changkyun one last thing to remember him by before he’s gone forever, on to bigger and better things like Changkyun has always half-wanted, half-feared.

“Are you cold?” Changkyun dares to ask. 

Kihyun, after a moment, nods, and Changkyun pulls his arm around him tighter and hitches him in close, Kihyun’s face in his neck. The cold little tip of his nose nudges into Changkyun’s throat, but Kihyun is the one shivering, and Changkyun murmurs, “Come here,” rubs a hand up his back, holds him still.

After a few seconds, Kihyun _relaxes,_ goes more pliant against Changkyun. “That’s better,” he breathes.

“I can bring another blanket,” Changkyun offers, his voice very quiet, and it’s a testament to his strength of will, how much he’s already done for Kihyun, how much more he’s willing to do, that he doesn’t turn his head to nuzzle into Kihyun’s hair. 

“No, this is fine,” Kihyun says. So casual, so nonchalant. As though he’s not so wrapped up in Changkyun’s arms that Changkyun can’t remember where he ends and Kihyun begins. God, he’s really dying. He’s saying his last goodbyes. Changkyun is getting choked up before he can stop himself, but then Kihyun moves and the sharp jut of his hipbone stabs Changkyun in the stomach and that’s plenty distracting enough for Changkyun to feel better again. 

“Can I ask you something?” Changkyun says, not thinking, just talking, his preferred method of communication, nice work if he can get it. 

“I doubt it,” Kihyun mumbles.

“Why did you carry my amp?” Changkyun asks, just blurts it out, and he can tell it takes Kihyun a while to even understand what the fuck Changkyun is even referencing. 

“After the show last month?” Kihyun clarifies, and when Changkyun nods, just slightly so he doesn’t dislodge Kihyun from his nestled-in position under his chin, he huffs an annoyed breath against his skin. “I mean, it’s polite, right? You’d been carrying it yourself the whole way home, and it was about time I helped out. You’re always acting so tragic about it, I was tired, sue me.”

“So that’s why,” Changkyun says pensively, mostly to himself. “Just because it was time.”

“And—” Kihyun struggles slightly in his grip, and Changkyun loosens up, gives Kihyun room to move and get more comfortable, their legs slotting together, and Kihyun is so unpleasant to cuddle with but Changkyun has probably never been happier in his whole entire life. “And because it was heavy. You’re reading too far into it. I’m trying to sleep.”

It is heavy. It’s always been heavy. Changkyun has always told him it’s heavy. He doesn’t know why Kihyun is noticing it now all of a sudden. Why he’s being kind. He wants to ask if Kihyun is okay, he wants to ask what’s wrong, why Kihyun won’t tell him what’s going on with him, not that they’ve ever talked like that before but he knows Kihyun knows he can tell him anything, he wants to tell Kihyun not to rush, just to be himself, Changkyun will still be here, take it slow, rest that brilliant head, let the morning be wiser than you are right now, but he doesn’t say anything, and Kihyun is falling asleep, his soft, shallow breaths warm and steady on Changkyun’s collar. Changkyun can’t even cry over it, his third favorite Kihyun-related pastime after staring at Kihyun and masturbating about Kihyun. All he can do is hold him until he falls asleep, too.

They don’t talk about it in the morning. They’ve separated by then, anyway, Kihyun back on his side of the bed, Changkyun on the other, only touching at their ankles. Changkyun has no idea if this is a permanent thing or just a one-off. He makes coffee for them — Kihyun has his own mug, but he never uses it — and Kihyun drinks it, then gets dressed, neat and starched and fancy as ever, Changkyun’s 9-to-5 career boy wet dream fantasy, but Changkyun can’t even _enjoy_ him, he’s too fucking worried that his best friend, his only true friend, is going to die and there’s nothing Changkyun can do to stop it. 

“Are you kidding me?” Kihyun snorts, slowing his walk as he does up his tie. Changkyun is doodling at the kitchen table, so far just three tiger stripes inside a thick black circle. “It’s a band, not an energy drink.”

“You don’t like it?” Changkyun says and holds the paper up for him to see. “I thought it was cute.”

“Of course you did,” Kihyun says. “You have the aesthetic sensibilities of a street urchin from the Dickensian period in the midst of a fever dream about what people thought the future would be like in the 80s.”

Changkyun brightens immediately. “I think that just might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes, straightens his tie, he always looks so good, Changkyun glances away before his mouth can start watering at the sight of him. “I was thinking the logo should be in color,” he says in a casual tone that typically means he’s given something quite a lot of thought. 

“Okay,” Changkyun agrees readily. “Orange? Red?”

“Sure,” Kihyun says. 

“That’ll look great on a black shirt,” Changkyun says. “Very Soviet.”

“Is a Soviet aesthetic really what we want as a band? Give me that,” Kihyun says and takes the pencil from Changkyun’s hand, bending over the table and pulling the paper towards himself. He hums, a soft, lovely noise at the back of his lovely throat, and twirls the pencil over his fingertips, then puts it to paper. He used to draw, Changkyun is pretty sure. Art lessons, maybe. Maybe just innate talent. He never ceases to amaze, and Changkyun means that sincerely, he’s so enthralled by anything Kihyun does. “How does the poem go?”

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night,” Changkyun recites, leaning his chin in his hand and watching Kihyun hover the point of the pencil over the paper. “What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetr…y?”

“Great rhyme there,” Kihyun says and starts to draw.

Changkyun bites back a smile and goes on, “In what distant deeps or skies burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?”

“Okay, I get it,” Kihyun says, but not in a mean way, just letting Changkyun know that’s enough for now. No acknowledgment of the fact that Changkyun has a poem from 1794 memorized and can recite it off the top of his head at a moment’s notice; if anything, that just makes Changkyun feel warm, that Kihyun takes that sort of thing for granted when it comes to him. Kihyun is drawing what seems to be a hand, then he starts to draw an eye in the middle, and Changkyun starts to open his mouth and Kihyun, anticipating him, snaps, “It won’t be Illuminati imagery, I’m not an idiot.”

Changkyun, mollified, shrugs one shoulder and taps his fingers on his chin to the beat of track two. One of these days he’ll come up with titles, but if Kihyun doesn’t need any, then Changkyun doesn’t need any, either. “There’s also lines about wings, hearts, and furnaces later. One mention of a lamb,” he adds.

“I think I got all I needed,” Kihyun says with a roll of his eyes. 

His sketch is looking good. Changkyun loves seeing his fingers holding a pencil. He does it very carefully, deliberately, but his knuckles are white with the strain. Changkyun looks away from the paper and to the clock, and Kihyun is running just a little late, he’s normally out the door by 8:17 but it’s 8:20 and he’s in no rush. Interesting. “What part would be in color?” Changkyun inquires, and Kihyun outright _hisses_ at him, which makes Changkyun rear back with a brief laugh. “Jesus, sorry. Take your time, Michelangelo.”

“This is just a sketch,” Kihyun mutters. “If you don’t like it, I’ll redo it later, or _you_ can try and come up with something that wouldn’t be sold as a stencil at Claire’s.”

“Does Claire’s sell stencils?” Changkyun wonders. “Nah, it looks great so far. Very marketable.”

“It’s not _just_ about marketability,” Kihyun says stiffly.

It almost sounds as though Kihyun _wants_ Changkyun to like it. As though he cares about his opinion. The logo looks great, Kihyun’s lines are so clean and confident, and it appeals plenty to Changkyun’s goth sensibilities, so why is Kihyun so tense? Since when has he given any weight whatsoever to the whims and frivolities of his roommate? Kihyun makes a quiet inquisitive chirp of a sound and Changkyun answers him with a low, approving m-hm, then Kihyun starts tracing over the lines he’d already drawn to darken them, and Changkyun watches his hands, his deliberate beautiful hands, then glances up at his face, then at the clock again — 8:23 — and then. 

It hits him.

_Changkyun did it._

“Well,” Kihyun says, dissatisfied but not too badly, and sets the pencil down. “That’s the best I can do for now. I’ll fiddle with it at work if I get bored.”

Changkyun doesn’t answer. He’s grinning from ear to ear. Fuck, he can’t help it. It’s been three years — three years since they met, two years of excruciating, idyllic cohabitation, a year since they brought other people into the band. And three years and some change since Changkyun fell so in love he never looked back even once, since everyone else faded so completely into the background, eclipsed entirely by the radiance of Kihyun. To Kihyun, Changkyun was a nuisance, an acquaintance, a pest at best, and now — Changkyun waited, and he existed, and he didn’t push, and now _Kihyun loves him back._ That’s why he’s been acting so weird. That’s why he was kind, just for a moment, and why he’s been sleeping in Changkyun’s bed, and calling him just to hear— Changkyun is going to cry— just to hear the sound of him breathing. Changkyun really did it. Kihyun loves him back. He _did it._

“What?” says Kihyun’s irritated voice, and that voice loves him, that voice that Changkyun gave everything up for, that voice that he believes in, that voice belongs to a man who loves Changkyun in return. Changkyun can’t stop smiling. He doesn’t smile all that often, and never like this, with all his teeth and his cheeks aching from the effort, but he can’t stop, he can’t stop smiling at the man who loves him back. 

But Kihyun is less than pleased about this inexplicable expression of joy. He huffs, pushes the paper closer to Changkyun again, fixes his tie although it’s already perfect. “ _What?”_ he insists.

Changkyun wants to tell him not to hurry, beautiful, not to be so fast and loud and angry, Changkyun will be quiet with him. I see you, he wants to say. I know you. He’s still smiling, and he just shakes his head at Kihyun, trying to stop and make himself look a little less deranged, but he can’t, he can’t, he’s too happy. Everything Kihyun puts him through makes him happy, but this is Kihyun’s final act of cruelty, being in love with Changkyun back and not even having the common human decency to tell him and put him out of his three-year misery, and it’s _exquisite,_ only stings a little, Changkyun can’t believe how fucking lucky he is, he really did it. He wins. Kihyun has been pining for him, Kihyun has been being hesitant and shy and careful, in his own way, for Changkyun’s sake, for Changkyun. 

“You think the design is funny or something?” Kihyun demands. He’s frustrated and frowning, looking at Changkyun with his typical disappointed, disapproving eyes, but he’s never been lovelier. And he has no idea that Changkyun knows now, so Changkyun still has the upper hand, and it’s so strange to be one step ahead of him when Kihyun always has everything under control, but Changkyun kinda likes it. But Kihyun’s tense frown is deepening, and Changkyun shakes his head, beaming up at him.

“No,” Changkyun tries, but it’s hard to talk when he’s smiling this hard, grinning from ear to ear, he feels buoyant, weightless, unfettered, free. Love has hurt, but it’s so beautiful, and now— now he gets it, Kihyun is his to keep, and he can barely believe his luck. “No, it’s great— that’s not, I’m just—”

“Whatever,” Kihyun huffs. “I’m going to work.”

“Have a good day,” Changkyun manages, still beaming, and Kihyun, the man who loves Changkyun, ignores him, checks his pockets for his wallet and employee ID, then leaves without saying bye.

As soon as the door slams shut, Changkyun’s forehead drops to the surface of the table, and he’s smiling so much, so hard, he scrubs his hands over his face but not even that makes his smile subside. By the time Kihyun comes home from work, Changkyun will have calmed down, but he’ll still _know,_ there’s nothing Kihyun can do to take that away from him. Ever. No matter what happens next, nothing will change the fact that Changkyun fell in love first, and then he waited, and then slowly, the temperature rising gradually enough that he didn’t notice until the water around him was boiling, Kihyun fell in love with him right back. Changkyun covers his face with his hands, shrieks a little bit, kicks his legs around, drinks some ice water, stands swaying in the middle of the kitchen, tries to breathe, he’s still smiling. 

In a few hours, Changkyun hasn’t calmed or adjusted, but he’s at least a little more functional. (Needless to say, absolutely no work has gotten done on his article.) He tracks down some of his old songwriting notebooks and finds lyrics for a half-baked song that he was too shy to show even to Kihyun, with whom he’s typically completely unabashed. Most of his songs are bitter and tortured, intentionally so, boasting about his perfect dissatisfaction with the circumstances of his life, but this one is sweeter, imagines an alternate world where Changkyun never had to wait in the first place, one where Kihyun came to him all on his own. It’s shit, mawkish and affected and cloying and stupid, but reading it at least helps get Changkyun in the mindset of possibility, imagining Kihyun coming home and just kissing him, taking his hand, pressing his temple against Changkyun’s and murmuring that he loves him. Changkyun hovers in the doorway to Kihyun’s bedroom, mostly abandoned for the past few weeks, and realizes that the next place they get together will be a one-bedroom, and sure, yes, then he cries over things a little bit. It’s been a long time coming — he’s been overdue for his weekly cry anyway. He weeps openly in the doorway, not bothering to wipe his tears away, and eventually slides down to sit on the floor, back braced against the wooden frame, until his eyes are all cried out and he dries his wet mouth and breathes again. He won. He wins. Now all he has to do is get Kihyun to admit to it.

Of the two of them, Changkyun is not the jungle cat, the natural predator, the hunter. Changkyun has always been a prey animal at best. But for once, he has to lie in wait, cobra-coiled, and when Kihyun unlocks the door and starts to come in, Changkyun ignores the leap of his faithful heart and minds his own business, keeps his cool, continues writing his sentence. Kihyun doesn’t greet him, makes no reference to Changkyun’s odd behavior from this morning (if asked, he’d likely say that everything Changkyun does is odd, so that wasn’t even worth mentioning), just goes into the kitchen to make his post-work coffee and get something to eat. Changkyun’s chance will come at night. It’s currently about to be six. He’s waited three years; he can wait five more hours. 

By some miracle of fate, Changkyun manages to avoid pissing Kihyun off too badly before they go to bed, and vice versa. Changkyun doesn’t have a plan, although maybe he should. Kihyun likes plans. He likes for things to happen in a certain order. Changkyun, who hasn’t made his bed since childhood and eats pizza for breakfast and omelettes for dinner, doesn’t concern himself with similar issues. But he should have a plan for this, to make Kihyun comfortable, to ease him into it. Even if it’s just two steps. As he brushes his teeth and listens to the sounds of Kihyun getting ready for bed, he considers it. Changkyun’s not used to ease. He goes all-out, typically. But Kihyun needs him to go slow, and what Kihyun needs from Changkyun, he’ll always, always get.

Kihyun slips into bed by Changkyun’s side. He’s never particularly talkative after work, but Changkyun was so attuned to him today that he couldn’t help noticing that he was even less talkative than usual, the lovely line between his eyebrows deeper, more difficult to smooth out. “Long day?” Changkyun dares to ask.

Kihyun’s face, illuminated by the blue light of his phone, is tired. “I might get a promotion soon,” he says shortly, and it’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about it, but Changkyun raises his eyebrows, turns his head on his pillow slightly to look at him.

“Really? That’s great, that means higher pay, huh?”

“And more hours,” Kihyun adds, sour. 

Now, the logical part of Changkyun’s brain knows that Kihyun is only displeased with that prospect because he hates his thankless job, but Changkyun’s soaring heart tells him that it’s because more hours at work means fewer hours at home, fewer hours with the band, with _Changkyun,_ and he bites the inside of his cheek hard to keep his smile at bay. “I guess we’ll see,” he says, and Kihyun, in true form, doesn’t reply, just turns over, plugs his phone in, and goes to sleep.

And now that Changkyun knows Kihyun loves him, all of this feels so different. It’s always felt good, of course. This little sadomasochistic game he and Kihyun play. But this is new, sensing that Kihyun is only being reticent and secretive because he’s frightened of making himself vulnerable to his beloved, and he wants Changkyun’s support, his unfaltering encouragement, just for Changkyun to be by his side. And isn’t that what Changkyun does best in the whole world?

Changkyun wakes up and the room is dark; the flickering streetlight outside his window has finally burnt out, and now that Changkyun keeps his bedroom door closed at night, there’s no light coming in from the living room or road. He’s not sure what time it is, or what, exactly, woke him up, but Kihyun, though lying still, isn’t asleep either — his breaths are just slightly uneven, enough that Changkyun, always on his wavelength, notices. He’s lying still and pretending to be out, maybe to try and get himself to go under, but Changkyun isn’t fooled. He listens for a few more cycles of breath, keeps his eyes open, and begins the plan.

“I know you’re awake,” he murmurs, and now that he’s figured Kihyun out, he takes a calculated risk, thinking maybe, since Changkyun loves Kihyun’s voice so much, just maybe Changkyun’s voice could do something for Kihyun, too. “I know a lot of things about you, Kihyun.”

Kihyun’s breath hitches, then resumes. Changkyun skims his eyes over to the faint, night-blurred shape by his side, but Kihyun is turned away from him, back to pretending he’s asleep, trying to pace his breaths to make it convincing. It’s not going to work. Kihyun can’t hide anything from Changkyun anymore. Changkyun’s lips curl in a faint smile, and he continues, lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling, keeping his voice so low, so quiet, so that if Kihyun really were to be asleep, it wouldn’t wake him, wouldn’t disturb him, Changkyun never wants to disturb him when it really counts. 

“You look at my mouth,” Changkyun breathes. “I know you’re thinking about what it could do for you. I look at your mouth, too. I love the shapes it makes when you sing my words. What shape would it make when you come, hmm?”

Nothing. Kihyun is silent. He might be holding his breath. Changkyun lets himself think about these things only once every couple days, and while he talks about his love for Kihyun so often, the rest he leaves unsaid, so to finally tell him is — heady, crazy, powerful, sears dirty electric through his veins. Changkyun is too warm already, this is so fucking risky, but — Kihyun hasn’t smothered him to death or told him to shut up yet, so he must want this. He wants this. He _wants this._ Changkyun braves on.

“I think first I’ll just kiss you,” he muses. “I’m such a good kisser, Kihyun. I’ve been practicing for you. Really, it’s a good thing you waited as long as you did, because when we met, I wasn’t ready for you. And now everyone I’ve ever fucked, anyone who’s ever fucked me, it’s all been practice for _you._ Honing my technique. To make it good, how you like it. Bet nobody’s ever kissed you just right. But I can.”

He can imagine Kihyun’s disdainful scoff, the tilt of his chin when he asks how Changkyun can be so sure. And though he’s staying perfectly still, Changkyun knows that’s what he’s thinking, so he answers him: “I just know. I’ve spent the past three years watching your every move, you think I don’t know how you’d want me to kiss you?”

Which should be creepy, would be in any other context, any other pair, but Kihyun is so preternaturally still, so motionless, he’s hanging on every word. Changkyun has always suspected that some aspect of Kihyun does get an ego boost from Changkyun’s attentions, and this confirms it; the charm of being so closely observed has a strong effect on him, even though he’s clearly working hard to hide it. Something in the bed rustles, probably just Kihyun shifting an arm or a leg, and Changkyun freezes, counts back from ten, but Kihyun doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move again, and Changkyun exhales and continues.

“So first we’ll kiss,” he murmurs. “Kiss so good you’ll tell me to stop, you can’t live like this, I’ll make you late for work every single day because you won’t let me stop kissing you. You made me wait, maybe I should make you wait, hm? Just kiss you, nothing else, for a week. Do you think I’d be able to last that long? If I’m kissing on you, putting my hands on you, you’re in my lap, all restless and squirmy like you were last night, breathing hot with that mouth of yours on me, you think I’m gonna be able to hold back?”

Still nothing. If Kihyun doesn’t say anything in— in two more sentences, Changkyun will give up. So they had better be good sentences. Changkyun isn’t quite worked up yet, just warm and lazy, but on the way to it, and he closes his eyes for just a moment, imagines what it would be like if Kihyun were really affected by this, squeezing his thighs together and curling his fingers in the bedsheets to stay calm, breathing shallow to be quiet. Lips pink. Eyes glossy. The wagon Changkyun has hitched himself to, the star he’s pointed his course towards, his one and only. “Maybe I want you too bad to be able to hold back,” he admits, hoarse and quiet. “Been looking at your body for so long, I want to _feel_ it, I want to feel you, it’s been torture for me to have you sleep in my bed and not let me touch you— I want to tease you, I want to make you beg, but you could make me beg so easy, lover, you know I’m yours, I’m your toy, you know I’d be so good for you, please let me be so good for you.”

Kihyun _moans._

It’s quiet, breathy, barely a noise at all, just a soft, struggling sound and the exhale of his breath against the sheets, but it’s such a shock to Changkyun’s system and he gets so hard so fast he’s dizzy and the room is spinning and he pushes his hand down under the sheets and palms over himself as he stiffens, biting back a noise of his own. “Yeah,” he gasps. “Yeah, I know, me too, I want you so fucking bad I’ve been able to taste it for three years. Kihyun— the power you have over me, you know there’s not a single time I’ve come without thinking of you since we met? You know that?”

“Yes,” Kihyun breathes, _whimpers,_ and he moves, he moves his hand, Changkyun hears the motion against the sheets — he turns his head and sees that Kihyun is curled tighter around himself, that hand must have gone straight between his thighs, and Changkyun can’t get a full inhale in, he’s fighting for air, because it’s working, he’s getting Kihyun off, his Kihyun, Kihyun is touching himself because Changkyun is confessing to him, and Changkyun grips his cock through his boxers and swallows down a groan.

“Then you know the rest,” he continues, hungry, eager. “You know every time you glare at me I’m seconds away from begging you to bend me over. You know you could snap your fingers and I’d get on my knees for you. How many times have I called a one-night-stand your name? I never spend the night. Ever. Always come home thinking maybe you’ll change your mind about me, take a chance, have some fun. Use me— however you want— Kihyun, I’ll do _anything_ for you.”

Kihyun moans softly again, and there’s definitely movement on his side of the bed now, rhythmic and slow, undeniable. Changkyun wants to see, he wants to touch and taste and feel, and he whines in response, curling his fingers around himself and rubbing down with the heel of his palm, grinding slow to give himself enough friction that he feels good, but not enough to make him come. The air is heavy, he can barely breathe, and Kihyun’s breath is soft panting by his side, and if Changkyun stops talking, if this stops, he’ll die, so he just lets his mouth keep running, for as long as Kihyun wants him to.

“Wanna tongue-kiss you in front of Mark Lee,” he says, and Kihyun makes a choked noise almost like a laugh. “Wanna suck you off backstage,” he says, and Kihyun’s responding sound is a lot more breathless, muffled small in the sheets. “Yeah. I think about that every single day, Kihyun, the way you _looked_ at me. You didn’t think I forgot, did you? I know _you_ didn’t forget.”

“No,” Kihyun pants.

“He made me come three times,” Changkyun says, his voice as low as it can go, his cock straining in his boxers as he palms himself. “I was insatiable. I needed you so fucking bad, Kihyun. If you’d come to my room after I got home we could have fucked all night and it still wouldn’t have been enough. You ever notice that I— I wear a lot of shirts with the shoulders and collar all worn out? It’s so you can tear them if you put your hands on me.”

Kihyun shudders, and of course he loves that, the fact that everything is disposable to Changkyun, everything except him. Kihyun is his only constant. Always here with him, his forever. And now he’s stroking himself off, Changkyun can hear skin on skin now, still slow, and Changkyun mirrors him, slides his hand into his boxers so he can wrap his fingers around his dick and fuck up into his loose grip. “Let me finger you open while you sing,” Changkyun says, strained, hoarse, and Kihyun trembles. “When you come, let me lick you clean. Now, tomorrow, whenever, Kihyun, call me and I’ll fly to you, I’ll come fuck you at work, we can mess around in Yoongi’s spare room, I want you so bad, anywhere, all the time. It’s never been right for you with anyone else? Nobody understands you, nobody knows you, except _me._ You’ll feel it with me.”

Kihyun makes another one of his aching, breathless sounds, and Changkyun wrenches his eyes open to look to him, to see his frantic nod. It’s as much a confession as everything Changkyun is saying, and Changkyun is _dying,_ he needs to go to him, to pull him in, kiss him on his fever-hot mouth, slip his hand between his gorgeous legs, make him moan and breathe and melt, but if Kihyun wanted that, he’d be doing it already, so he must just want this for now, just this, easing him in. “Are you happy?” Changkyun rasps. “You’ve had me metaphorically by the throat for years, now you get to _literally_ have me by the throat.”

Kihyun’s shoulders twitch. God— if he turns over and puts his hand on Changkyun’s neck, Changkyun will— will just die, right here and now, nothing could possibly be better than that. His cock is dripping in his palm, drooling over his fingers, and Kihyun’s hushed breaths are wet, raspy, hitching through his chest. Maybe he’s biting his lips raw, or rubbing his mouth against the cotton of his pillow just for a moment, just to give himself the contact of a kiss. Changkyun gasps into the hot, heavy air above him, curls his hand a little tighter around his dick. It feels good, but what feels better than anything is Kihyun’s vicarious pleasure, knowing _he_ feels good, knowing he hears what Changkyun is saying, really hears him, and can’t help that it’s getting to him, getting him hard, making him needy. Everything Changkyun is feeling is echoed, amplified, by the one person in the world who knows him, and Kihyun sounds downright fucking angelic, his sighs destructive, his moans even worse. Changkyun’s running out of words, and words are what he does, but this is too much, he can’t say it all, so he just—

“Please let me make you come,” he begs. “I don’t need to touch you, I just need to know— I waited, I was so fucking patient, I let you come to me, I was _good,_ and all I need is to know that I made you come just once, that you thought about me just once, that you wanted me even for a second. Please, all I want is to be yours, I don’t want to be my own, just take me, you can have me, to keep or to play with and throw away, I don’t care, just— please—”

Kihyun makes one of those lovely delicate broken animal noises and breathes, “Relax, baby,” and Changkyun essentially blacks out, gasps desperate into the heavy nighttime air between them and he’s coming before he knows it, but not before he hears Kihyun coming, too, those deceptively sweet moans pitching high, his hand stilling on himself but his body trembling with the feeling. 

And then they’re just lying there in the consequence of what they’ve done, in the consequence of all these years, and Kihyun covers his face with his free hand, embarrassed, and rolls over onto his front to hide. 

Yeah, Changkyun didn’t think he’d be much for pet names. He wants to roll after Kihyun and hug him, kiss the nape of his neck and make good on his word and lick him clean or until Kihyun comes again, but he’s relaxing just like Kihyun told him to, so he doesn’t. He grins up at the ceiling, dazed. Kihyun’s breath is ragged, but Changkyun imagines that he sounds content. This has been a long time coming for both of them, seems like. And now that it’s done, that the process has begun, Changkyun can lie back, the future and Kihyun will take care of the rest.

Kihyun wants to touch him but is making himself wait. Changkyun has all the time in the world. He falls asleep, sated and warm and so full of longing he can hardly keep it all inside, to the melody of Kihyun’s breath, slowing, deepening, getting even and steady and sure to the beat of Changkyun’s heart. He knows they won’t talk about it in the morning, but they don’t need to. The threshold has been crossed. Changkyun, vampiric, invited in. All they ever do is fall asleep together in significant ways, but it’s possibly never been more significant than this.

Changkyun wakes up to an empty bed. But Kihyun has always been skittish, so he doesn’t panic, just listens for a moment until he hears a very faint clatter in the kitchen. His boxers are stiff and unpleasant, but Changkyun, used to all manner of various small humiliations, doesn’t even mind. He gets up, stretches, changes into sweatpants and a shirt, comes to join Kihyun in the kitchen. Well, he won’t tell if Kihyun doesn’t, and Kihyun doesn’t acknowledge him when he comes in — he’s reading his morning paper and eating corn flakes, by far the most joyless cereal to indulge in. He looks rumpled and sleepy and heartbreakingly sweet, but the second he glances up at Changkyun, his eyes narrow like a crane preparing to skewer an unsuspecting fish, and Changkyun shivers happily and puts the coffee pot on. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. Perfect.

“I heard they’re changing the bus route,” Changkyun says, just because he likes to make dry, meaningless small talk with Kihyun in the mornings. He’s so happy, God, he doesn’t know how to be this happy. In his sad, broken mind, he and Kihyun have been in a kind of romantic relationship all along, but now it’s not just him thinking that alone — Kihyun, finally, is with him. 

“From what to what?” Kihyun replies. “And which route? I’ll pay you five dollars to say something specific.”

“Sorry, no dice,” Changkyun says with a grin, getting a pack of toaster waffles and a frying pan. 

He’s trying not to make his good mood too obvious. Wouldn’t want to scare Kihyun off. He lights the stove, tosses a toaster waffle on the pan, ignores the box instructions so completely that maybe it’ll get Kihyun’s attention. The coffee pot dings, Changkyun pours a mug, adds sugar, brings it to the table, has the first gulp, lets Kihyun steal the rest. Everything is happening so fast, but he wants to slow it down. Show Kihyun that he’ll keep waiting, if that’s what Kihyun wants. He’s still got time.

From there, considering the fact that they had sex last night, it’s a typical morning. Kihyun snaps at Changkyun over his maligning of the toaster waffles, but when he tries to show Changkyun how it’s actually done in the toaster, his come out pallid and undercooked. Changkyun gives him one answer to the daily crossword in the newspaper, declines to give him the rest, cranes his neck to read an article on the front page while Kihyun, sitting opposite the table from him, reads one in the middle. It’s an early morning, too, so Kihyun is still in pajamas — different boxers, since Changkyun is looking at his legs anyway — but he gets up and goes to change soon, closing his door behind him. 

It’s so strange to see him in his own room. Changkyun just hopes Kihyun doesn’t flip everything around now that Changkyun has gotten used to having another crab in his hermit shell. Their equilibrium before was bliss; this, it seems, will be unearthly. If he moves back into his bedroom, Changkyun will get used to it eventually, but that’ll be a lot of sleepless nights, missing him, and he wants things to stay either just how they are or even better, but for now, he drinks his coffee, hums quietly to himself, idly contemplates painting his nails later just to see how badly that gets on Kihyun’s nerves. Last night he heard him moan. And tonight? Well, who knows. Changkyun smiles into his mug, lips fitting to the place Kihyun’s just were, and sips.

Kihyun returns in a few minutes, dressed for work and smelling clean. He’s wearing one of his best shirts; despite what he said last night (it’s a miracle Changkyun can remember anything that was said last night before he turned the world upside down for them both), he seems to be anticipatory of the potential promotion. Kihyun doesn’t dress up for no reason. In fact, just about everything he does has a reason, one of his many charms. He checks his pockets for his keys and ID and says, “I’ll be late coming home. Grocery run.”

Changkyun looks up from the crossword, which he has taken over in Kihyun’s absence. “Don’t forget my—”

“Your passionfruit purée, yes, I fucking know,” Kihyun says with a roll of his eyes. “I still don’t know why you like it so much. You don’t even eat it all before it spoils.”

“It just makes me happy,” Changkyun says mournfully. “Don’t you think I deserve a little happiness from time to time?”

“No,” Kihyun says. He straightens his tie in the hall mirror, grabs his coat. “Wait up for me for dinner, though.”

“Of course,” Changkyun says. “Nine-across, _Melville.”_

“Motherfucker,” Kihyun says and when Changkyun tips his head up to grin at him, Kihyun leans down and presses their lips together, brief and fond and practiced. “See you later.”

His mouth is warm and a little dry, and Changkyun is too scared to move, to frighten him off. He’s not even breathing. Kihyun pulls away and straightens up and heads for the door, and Changkyun, understanding, lets his caught breath seep out of his lungs and taps his pen against the table and calls, “Love you!” after him, the specter of Kihyun’s kiss still on his lips, neighbored by the very beginnings of a smile. 

Kihyun hums in response, in acknowledgement, and Changkyun is too scared to turn and see him go so he just listens for the close of the door, the turn of Kihyun’s key in the lock. And how perfect this is for them, how fucking idiotic, that after three years of knowing Changkyun was seconds away from death by love at any given moment, the absolute most Kihyun can muster up for him is a casual and semi-accidental kiss goodbye. Changkyun _almost_ lets him have it, too, and he honestly _would_ have let him have it, if next, he didn’t immediately hear Kihyun in the hallway, muffled screaming, probably into the sleeve of his coat.

Shit, okay. They’re doing this. Changkyun jumps up so fast the chair falls over with a loud crash and runs to the door, colliding painfully with it in the process. “Kihyun,” he says urgently through the door.

“No,” Kihyun says back, still muffled.

“Kihyun, oh my God,” Changkyun says, and presses his forehead to the chipped wood, just to the side of the peephole. “Come back.”

“No,” Kihyun repeats more firmly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We don’t have to talk about it!” Changkyun vows. “I just want to—” He lifts up and looks through the peephole, and sees that Kihyun has his face covered with his hands, all curled in small and the tips of his ears pink, unless that’s just the shitty glass skewing the image. 

“I’ll be late,” Kihyun says. 

“You can go now,” Changkyun says. “I just wanted to see you one more time.”

“I’m going to work, not dying at sea,” Kihyun snaps.

“You _kissed_ me,” Changkyun breathes. “Kihyun, are we in love?”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Kihyun insists and storms off down the hallway, which means yes, they are. 

Changkyun watches him until he goes down the stairs, vanishes from sight, and then Changkyun turns around so his back is to the door and slides down slowly, makes it all the way to the ground, wraps all his limbs around himself. When Kihyun gets back from work, Changkyun will give him what he wants. He’ll have dinner ready, and they’ll argue about it same as they always do, only now, they have the option of kissing if they feel like it, and never discussing what’s going on, never acknowledging it, why would they? Changkyun has thought of them as dating all this time, so now Kihyun is retconning his own emotions, too, to see them the same way. No need for a grand get-together, a teary-eyed confession. They do that every time they play a show. God, they’re not even going to tell the rest of the fucking band, they’ll just tongue-kiss in front of Mark Lee and send him to an early grave and have to find a new guitarist all over again. When Kihyun gets back from work, and after they have their dinner, they’ll work on some songs, maybe fight over who needs to do what chore this week, and then when they get into bed, Changkyun will kiss him again, like he promised this time, and Kihyun will let it happen, Kihyun will pull him closer, like old lovers, like they’ve been doing this all along, make some weak complaints about Changkyun having a one-track mind, like they’ll both imagine he says every night, and Changkyun will suck on his neck and pull his shirt off and wrap Kihyun’s glorious legs around his waist, and neither of them will say anything about how much they want this, how much they want each other, how Changkyun has been dying and Kihyun has been starving for it just as bad, they’ll just _fuck,_ maybe they’ll draw the torture out a little more and fuck boring, fuck missionary, fuck like a married couple sick of each other, and when it’s done, Kihyun will fall asleep curled up on Changkyun’s chest and Changkyun won’t cry, not even a little, he’ll just let the pieces fit into place. And maybe give him morning head the next day, maybe. If he earns it. But who’s Changkyun kidding, he’s done three years’ worth of earning it.

All his anguish, and for nothing. For sitting by the door like a lovesick dog, eyes on the clock, work unwritten, and waiting for Kihyun to get back from the grocery store, to get back home. Kihyun has been calling it _home_ since the moment they both signed their names on the lease. He’ll be back in eleven hours, maybe twelve. And all Changkyun has to do until then is wait. Kihyun is out there somewhere, thinking of him. Maybe smiling, most likely scowling. Changkyun closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the slow movement of the minute hand ticking its way along to the rest of Changkyun’s life. 8:17. 8:18. 

8:19, and Changkyun hears footsteps coming down the hall and, above him, Kihyun’s key turning in the lock. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [i wrote a tiny coda scene of what happens immediately afterwards heehee](https://twitter.com/paratazxis/status/1262415602746036224)
> 
> !!! thank you so much for reading!!!!!!!! this is the happiest thing i’ve written since my minjoong hhrjdkhrj my other big changki is so damn moody and this was a nice break :’’)) once again, the playlist for this fic is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dnJSvAR8RlN8DPP0yCVZh?si=aUDkTmdUR8S-ObKn38iRXw)!!
> 
> please let me know your thoughts by leavin a comment!!!! or i’m also available on [twitter](https://twitter.com/paratazxis) (where there is also a link to my k0-fi for interested parties) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/paratazxis) and i would looove to talk more abt these lil guys >:3 also hehe if u spotted the deliberate stylistic differences between changkyuns pov and kihyuns pov... tell me ur Thots >:}
> 
> this is the end of this verse specifically, but like i said in the notes for chapter 1, im working on a huge changki right now which will be tonally very similar to this, so if you liked this, pls feel free 2 subscribe!!!! and if youre here from cdf, i love and appreciate you, cdf will also be back soon >:3 
> 
> hope yall are having a good summer!! stan tyger!! mwah!!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Spell Over the West](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24922744) by [akikotree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akikotree/pseuds/akikotree)




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